THE   IRON  MUSE 


BY 
JOHN  CURTIS  UNDERWOOD 


G.  P.   PUTNAM'S   SONS 

NEW  YORK  AND  LONDON 

TTbe  "Knickerbocker  press 

1910 


COPYRIGHT,  1910 

BY 
JOHN  CURTIS  UNDERWOOD 


TIbc  Knickerbocker  prcM,  YKW 


Co 
HERSELF 


308683 


Acknowledgments  are  due  to  the  publishers  of  Everybody's 
and  Ainslce's  Magazines  for  permission  to  reprint  the  follow 
ing  poems:" The  Captain"  and  "Beyond  the  Sea,"  published 
in  Everybody's,  "The  Snow  Peaks,"  "The  Canyon,"  "The 
Desert,"  and  "The  Factory  Whistles,"  published  in  Ainslee's 
at  various  times  during  the  last  ten  years. 


CONTENTS 

PACK 

I— THE  GOD  IN  THE  MACHINE 

THE  PRESS  ROOM i 

THE  BRIDGE 4 

THE  RAILROAD 6 

THE  AIR-SHIPS 8 

THE  POWER-HOUSE 10 

THE  FOUNDRY 12 

THE  COAL  MINE 14 

THE  MOTOR          .                  .         .         .         .  16 

THE  SEARCH-LIGHTS 18 

THE  TRIP  HAMMER 20 

II— THE  SEA 

THE  LIGHTHOUSE 22 

THE  CAPTAIN 24 

THE  MINES 26 

THE  FOG 28 

THE  WAVE  .                           ...  30 

vii 


viii  Contents 


PAC.B 


BEYOND  THE  SEA 32 

THE  COAL  PASSERS 34 

THE  LINER 37 

THE  SANDS  .  ....  39 

THE  DERELICT 42 

III— WOMEN 

MOTHERHOOD 44 

THE  INCOMMENSURABLE          ....  46 

THE  ULTIMATE 48 

THE  MOTHER  ...  50 

THE  LIFE  CLASS   .  ...  51 

THECAT      •  53 

THE  MIRROR 55 

DUST  DEVILS  (LES  MONDAINES)     ...  57 

THE  HILLTOP        ...  60 

LOVE   LETTERS   OF  A    MOTHER,   VII     .         .  62 

IV— SCIENCE 

WIRELESS 5- 

THE  X-RAYS 6s 

ANTITOXINE 5- 

RADIUM  69 

THE  LABORATORY  7T 


Contents  ix 

PAGE 

THE  OBSERVATORY 73 

THE  CONSULTING  ROOM  75 

THE  UPLIFT 77 

THE  FRONTIERSMAN  ....  80 

THE  CHAIR 83 

V— THE  CITY 

MIDNIGHT— THE  WAITING-ROOM—JERSEY  CITY      84 

THE  SKYSCRAPERS 85 

THE  HIGHWAY 87 

HERALD  SQUARE   .  ....       89 

THE  FACTORY  WHISTLES         ....       90 
THE  ARENA  .  .91 

THE  CRUCIBLE      ....  -93 

THE  SWITCH  YARD 95 

THE  MORAINE       .  ....       97 

THE  CLOCK  IN  THE  AIR          .         .  .98 

VI— THE  INNER  LIFE 

THE  CITY  OF  DREAMS 99 

THE  DREAM 100 

THE  IDOL 102 

FREEDOM 104 

THE  COUNTERSIGN  106 


x  Contents 

PAGR 

THE  REAL  THING 108 

IGDRASIL no 

LOVE  LETTERS  OF  AN  EVOLUTIONIST,  XI   .         .  1 1 1 

THE  PORTRAIT 113 

DREAM  CHILDREN 115 

VII— THE  WEST 

THE  GUN 116 

THE  FLOODS 118 

GRAIN 121 

THE  CANYON 123 

THE  SNOW  PEAKS 124 

THE  ROOSEVELT  DAM    .         .         .         .         .125 

THE  STAMPS 126 

THE  DESERT 128 

THE  FLUME 129 

THE  REDMAN 130 

VIII— POLEMICS 

THE  EXPATRIATES 132 

MONEY 134 

THE  BALLOT 136 

THE  SANCTUM 138 

THE  ARMOR  BEARERS 140 


Contents  xi 

PAGE 

SWEAT  SHOP  CHILDREN  .                          .142 

THE  CHILD  .  .     144 

THE  VICTORS  .     146 

FLOTSAM      .  .         .     149 

You     .  ...     151 

IX— VARIA 

THE  PHONOGRAPH  .     154 

THE  SONG  OF  THE  WIRES  .  .  .  .156 
THE  SONG  OF  THE  TYPEWRITER  .  .  .159 
THE  TUNNEL  .  .  .161 

THE  COTTON  MILL  .  .163 

THE  SUPREME  COURT    .  .  165 

THE  REGIMENT 167 

THE  BALLET 169 

THE  SYMPHONY     .         .  .         .         .171 

THE  CAMERA  .     174 

X— VERITIES 

PIONEERS 175 

THE  TALENT 177 

THE  VISION 179 

THE  MACHINE 181 

THE  PRAETORIANS                                    .         .  183 


Xll 


Contents 


THE  HOME   . 
THE  UNFIT  . 
THE  SLUM    . 
THE  IRON  CREED 
THE  MESSAGE 


185 
187 
189 
191 

193 


ENVOY 


THE  IRON  MUSE 


195 


FOREWORD 

HE  whose  word   is   life  incarnate,   who  through 
countless  ages  grows, 
To  a  world  of  evolution  more  and  more  His  labors 

shows ; 

More  and  more  in  man  His  image  His  eternal  purpose 
knows : 

Who  through  pain   and  toil  enduring,  Tubal  Cain's 

first  hammers  wrought, 
Piled  the  Pyramids,  and  slowly  Rome  from  civic  chaos 

brought, 
Taught  the  slow  approach  of  science  to  the  citadels  of 

thought. 

Avatars  of  the  Almighty  first  to  mortal  eyes  revealed 
When  a  camp-fire  first  was  kindled,  when  Achilles 

raised  his  shield; 
Learned  to  paint  as  Raphael  painted,  God  in  infant 

flesh  concealed ; 

Learned  to  gaze  with  Galileo,  learned  to  see  as  Newton 

saw 

Starry  space  a  serried  army  of  unalterable  law; 
Learned  from  nature's  last  recesses  Delphic  words  of 

life  to  draw. 


Foreword 

Taught  to-day  to  sift  the  atom,  grasp  the  germ  and 

probe  the  soul, 
Wrap  the  earth  in  rails  of  steel  and  wires  that  thrill 

from  pole  to  pole, 
Baffle  death  and  ride  the  whirlwind;  God  and  man 

draw  near  their  goal. 

Avatars  of  the  Almighty,  surgeon,  chemist,  engineer, 
Preach  to-day  a  new  Evangel.     Air-ships  soar,  His 

angels.     Fear 
Fails  and  fades;  for  man  holds  heaven  in  his  hands 

to-day  and  here. 


THE  IRON  MUSE 


THE  IRON  MUSE 


I— THE  GOD  IN  THE  MACHINE 
THE  PRESS  ROOM 

HERE  are  the  tables  of  the  law,  to-day  in  steel 
decreed ; 
The    last     supreme    commandment,     "Thou    shalt 

strenuously  succeed." 
The  roaring  presses  multiply  their  Maker's  restless 

will, 

His  powers  and  portents  magnify,  His  creatures  cure 
and  kill. 

The  depths  of  ocean  feel  the  stir  these  iron  scribes 

translate. 
The  ends  of  earth  are  garnered  bare  to  swell  their 

aggregate. 
Famine  and  plague  are  measured  out  and  traders' 

prices  rise. 
And  war's  red  sponge  of  wreck  and  rout  their  problem 

simplifies. 


2  TVie  Press  R.oom 

From  black  and  formless  chaos  the  lines  of  type  defile. 
Their  columns  massed  are  marching  to  their  symphony 

of  style, 
Through  a  discipline  of  thunder  where  the  Titans 

swart  are  chained, 
And  the  presses  close  and  sunder;  to  their  triumph 

foreordained. 

The  seas  give  up  their  secrets.     The  hills  send  down 

their  gold 
Herein  to  be  accounted  for,  and  weighed,  and  tried, 

and  told. 
And  human  hopes  and  prayers  and  fears,  and  loves 

and  lusts  are  wrought 
Into  the  lasting  fabric  of  the  nation's  noblest  thought. 

Beneath  the  flimsy  patterns  and  the  proof-sheets  of 

to-day 
They  are  printing  here  to-morrow  through  the  months 

of  long  delay; 

The  averages  eternal  that  balance  year  by  year, 
While  stars  and  things  supernal  draw  slowly  near  and 

clear. 

As  nerves  of  sight  and  sentience  will   telegraph  the 

brain 
The  impulse  and  the  warning  of  unreckoned  joy  and 

pain; 
To  lurk  in  convolutions  gray  where  germs  of  thought 

are  stored, 
Until  the  will  asserts  its  sway  and  chooses  from  its 

hoard : 


THe  Press   IVoom  3 

So  in  the  pregnant  travail  of  the  press  room's  fever 

heat, 
There  broods  where  ocean  cables  and  the  wires  of 

nations  meet; 
Omniscience  making  all  things  good  through  wars  of 

creed  and  clan 
And  vision  sure  of  brotherhood  through  strife  evolved 

in  man. 

Paris,  5'  13  '08. 


THE  BRIDGE 

QCOUTING  the  trail  to  the  shortest  ferry  the  cave 

O    men  first  were  its  pioneers. 

Lake  dwellers  grounded  a  rawhide  wherry,  sounded 

the  shallows  where  stand  these  piers. 
Warriors  and  workers,  clans  and  nations,  planted  their 

palisades,  drove  their  piles. 
And  the  Romans  builded  its  broad  foundations,  raised 

its  approaches  through  blood  red  miles. 

And  the  ages  of  stone  and  of  iron  were  ended.     And 

the  world  raced  on,  on  its  rails  of  steel, 
And  the  thunders  of  God  from  the  clouds  descended 

roll  through  the  wheels  that  these  rivets  feel. 
"Let  there  be  light,"  by  His  lips  was  spoken,  filling 

the  void  where  He  quenched  the  sun. 
And  the  silence  of  the  hills  was  broken.     And  the  arc 

lights  flamed  while  the  work  was  done. 

Planning  a  path  in  the  empty  air  the  master  hand  and 
the  master  brain 

Mounted  the  night  as  one  mounts  a  stair,  measured 
each  torsion,  thrust,  and  strain: 

Spinning  his  spider  web  of  steel,  breasted  the  whirl 
wind,  wrestled  through. 

And  the  elements  man's  will  shall  feel.  And  their 
race  and  their  rage  are  curbed  anew. 

4 


The   Bridge  5 

This  is  our  talisman  and  sign.     This  is  our  arch  of  a 

triumph  vast. 
For  the  brute  is  cowed  by  the  voice  divine.     The 

future  mounts  and  o'errides  the  past. 
Over  the  girders  the  wires  shall  run,  racing  the  trains 

through  the  midnight  hurled. 
Heralds  of  thought  they  outstrip  the  sun;  and  they 

bear  man's  records  around  the  world. 

Vibrant  and  strong  as  the  wheels  go  rolling,  out  of  the 
storm  comes  a  symphony 

Sure  as  the  eye  that  the  train  controlling  gauges  the 
pressure  of  days  to  be. 

Babes  unborn  in  their  mothers  sleeping,  thoughts  un 
dreamed  in  the  poet's  brain, 

Wealth  of  the  world  in  His  single  keeping  stream 
through  the  storm  as  He  drives  His  train. 

Out  of  the  night  comes  the  snarl  of  the  river.    Though 

the  beast  is  bound,  he  is  strong  to  slay. 
And  the  girders  rock  till  they  seem  to  shiver.     And 

the  winds  shall  winnow  the  weak  away. 
Now  is  your  trial  and  your  hour  of  trembling,  perils  of 

flaws  and  of  shifting  sand; 
Souls  that  must  pass,  now  is  no  dissembling.     Say 

have  ye  built  so  your  bridge  shall  stand? 

Seattle,  9'  12  '09. 


THE  RAILROAD 

I  AM  the  trail   that  your    fathers    have    followed 
westward  from  sea  to  sea. 
I  am  the  skeleton  grim  you  have  fashioned  to  trouble 

the  days  to  be; 
King  of  the  genii  loosed  from  my  prison,  in  the  mines 

that  your  greed  has  revealed ; 

Reek  of  the  breath  of  the  wrath  of  Jehovah  from  the 
vials  that  your  haste  has  unsealed. 

I  am  inertia  of  matter  and  motion,  of  wheels  rolling  on 

through  the  night; 
&on  on    aeon  of    long  evolution  through  darkness 

advancing  to  light; 
Pressure  of  millions  of  men  and  of  women,  that  want 

and  oppression  and  wrong 
Thrust  over  seas  to  the  west,  to  the  prairies  where  the 

weak  shall  have  space  to  grow  strong. 

I  am  the  impulse  that  stirs  in  your  pulses,  the  vital 
unrest  of  the  race 

Crushing  the  hours  into  seconds  and  striving  to  com 
pass  the  conquest  of  space : 

Power  that  forces  an  outlet,  expansion  that  circles  the 
planet,  that  spreads 

Plowing  the  prairie,  and  felling  the  forests,  and  tramp 
ling  the  white  water  sheds. 
6 


The  Railroad  7 

Snow  peak  and  city  are  waked  by  my  whistles.     I  am 

as  sleepless  as  death; 
Strong  as  the  lava  that  flows  from  the  mountains. 

Nor  may  I  pause  to  take  breath 
More  than  the  earth  in  its  orbit  unending,  the  growth 

of  the  grain  that  I  bear 
Forth  from  the  fields  to  the  seas,  to  the  steamers,  that 

the  nations  that  hunger  may  share. 

Last   of   the   powers    of   nature    and    swiftest   and 

strongest;  her  master  and  son, 
Cleaving  the  mountains,  and  curbing  the  rivers,  and 

reaping  the  desert  I  run. 
I  am  aggression,  extortion,  and  fraud.     By  the  road 

where  my  highwaymen  ride 
Tidings  and  food  for  their  need  to  the  nations  I  bring, 

and  my  spoils  I  divide. 

I  am  the  steel  that  is  laid  on  your  shoulders,  the 

scourge  that  your  sins  have  deserved. 
I  am  the  pathway  of  God's  own  Evangel.     Nor  have 

His  forerunners  swerved. 
Faster  and  faster  and  nearer  and  nearer  He  rides  to 

His  triumph  with  me. 
I  am  His  servant  as  strong  and  enduring  and  sure  as 

His  tides  in  His  sea. 

Paris,  10'  31  '08. 


THE  AIR-SHIPS 

THEY  are  coming,  earth  crowds  closer.     Man  that 
crept,  that  slept,  shall  soar; 
For  the  teeming  millions'  pressure  thrusts  us  upward 

more  and  more. 
From  the  spirit's  lowest  sources  life  in  spate  is  rising 

high; 

Floods  the  cities,  reaps  the  desert,  seeks  the  conquest 
of  the  sky. 

They  are  coming,  war  and  havoc  hover  low  and  weight 

their  wings; 
Death,  destruction,  rapine,  pillage,  till  we  rise  to  higher 

things. 
Flames  of  cities  lit  like  torches  still  shall  serve  to  show 

the  way, 
We  the  race  have  won  toward  heaven  since  the  first 

primordial  day. 

Senseless  atom,  sponge,  medusa,  polyp,  fish  and  snake 

and  ape; 
Still  existence  winds  its  spiral,  breasts  the  trail  to 

higher  shape. 
Still  the  zigzags  reach  and  widen,  still  the  outlook 

gains  and  grows. 
Birds,  our  scouts  and  heralds,  lead  us  till  man's  soul 

its  mission  knows. 


The  Air-Ships  9 

Ages  long  of  evolution,  centuries  of  history, 

Lead  us  conquerors  and  captives  to  the  day  that  sets 

us  free; 
Till  life's  pilgrims,  eyes  uplifting,  see  the  dawn  begin 

to  wake 
Near  the  holy  mountain's  summit;  till  the  slaves  their 

shackles  break. 

Unessential  weight  refining,  casting  off;  the  vital  speed 

Of  the  motor's  pulse  increasing,  throbbing  harder;  we 
shall  need 

Stronger  hearts  and  surer  vision.  Some  shall  fail. 
But  man  shall  reign, 

Halt  and  struggle,  rise  and  triumph,  heaven's  out 
works  here  attain. 

They  are  coming;  unknown  forces  shall  avail  to  lift 

them  higher; 
Teach  our  hands  to  steer,  nor  tremble,  through  the 

lightning's  shafts  of  fire; 
Ride  the  storm,  and  thread  the  whirlwind's  maelstrom 

surely  to  our  goal; 
Homeward  race  through  space  unerring  to  the  harbors 

of  the  soul. 

Winds  of  Heaven,  high  archangels,  cleave  the  clouds 

and  wing  their  flight; 
Wider  vistas  spread  by  day  and  wider  still  illume  at 

night; 
Till  the  spirit  stripped  of  matter  like  a  naked  athlete 

stands 
On  the  brink  of  God's  black  ocean,  yielding  gladly  to 

His  hands. 

Paris,  ii*  1 6  '08. 


THE   POWER-HOUSE 

HERE  have  we  focussed   forces   unknown  until 
to-day. 
Here  have  we  hived  new  powers  of  flame  that  swarm 

and  stream  away 
Down  highways  dark  where  globes  of  light  along  the 

meadows  bloom; 
Where  lustrous  lilies  born  of  night  dispel  the  city's 

gloom. 

Efficient,  brisk,  decisive,  the  master  spirit  goes, 
Reviews  his  restless  regiment  of  humming  dynamos, 
His  orders  gives  and  vanishes.     No  thought  have  such 

as  he 

To  glean  the  golden  pollen  of  the  midnight's  mystery. 
Sufficient  for  their  purpose  they  brought  this  thing 

to  be. 

His  row  of  dwarfs  distorted  an  oiler  stooping  tends 

Intent  upon  the  second  when  his  term  of  bondage 
ends. 

His  fellow  slaves  that  prisoned  here  shall  speed  his 
flying  car; 

Shall  light  his  way,  and  to  his  ear  bring  tidings  from 
afar; 

He  sees  not  in  the  shadow  where  their  ceaseless  tread 
mills  turn. 

10 


The  Power-House  n 

He  does  his  share  and  goes  his  way.     More  bright  the 

arc  lights  burn. 
And  men  and  women  walk  the  streets  where  once  the 

lava  flared. 
And  science  searching  deeper  yet  than  man  has  done 

or  dared, 
Another  cranny  in  the  void  to  human  sight  has  bared. 

High  in  His  holy  city  in  His  power-house  vast  of  space, 
The  Master  of  us  all  looks  forth.     He  sees  His  planets 

race, 

His  dynamos  that  generate  the  thought  that  compre 
hends 
The  infinite;  the  will   that    still   the   finite's   grasp 

extends ; 

And  love  that  shall  interpret  all  and  greater  love  beget. 
And    the    powers  that  dwell  in  darkness  shall  be 

delivered  yet. 
He  sets  His  finger  to  a  switch.     A  world  has  ceased  to 

be. 
Another  flames  new  born ;  with  it  His  Son  and  such  as 

we. 
And  light  shall  dawn  on  darkest  night,  and  teach  blind 

eyes  to  see. 

Paris.  iT  II  '08. 


THE  FOUNDRY 

AS  dawn  darts  forth  from  darkness  like  the  loom  of 
the  rising  sun, 
The  crucible  tilts  outpouring  the  lights  that  leap  and 

run. 

And  they  blaze  as  the  shadows  seize  them  like  new 
born  planets  cast 

To  the  swaddling  clothes  that  midnight,  the  midwife 
lifts  at  last. 

Like  the  rush  of  a  lava  river,  they  flare  through  the 

narrow  moulds, 

Till  every  sandy  cradle  a  shape  of  splendor  holds. 
And  the  fervor  fails  and  the  fever  cools,  and  the  heart 

of  rose  grows  gray 
Till  the  sand  with  the  thirst  of  a  desert  cold  has 

drained  its  warmth  away. 

Slowly  they  set  and  harden  there  as  the  dreams  and 

the  loves  of  youth 
Cool  to  the  old  man's  shrunken  strength  in  a  world  of 

wasted  truth. 
Buried  in  coffins  black  they  lie,  ranged  in  the  barren 

sands 

Till  a  day  of  resurrection  sets  free  strange  angels' 
hands. 


The  Foundry  13 

Slowly  the  workmen  lift  them  up,  lifeless  and  rigid 

bars, 
Food  for  the  forges  roaring  loud,  and  the  stuff  that 

shines  in  stars; 

In  red  reincarnation  again  to  glow  until 
They  are  wrought  into  keels  for  steamers  and  the 

wheels  of  mine  and  mill. 

They  are  rolled  into  plates  that  splinter  the  shells  that 

shriek  and  fly 
Through  the  leagues  of  the  reeling  battle  line  in  the 

strife  of  sea  and  sky. 
They  are  slowly  shaped  and  tempered,  whetted  to  steel 

as  keen 
As  the  will  of  the  surgeon  cleaving  surely  life  and  death 

between. 

They  are  fashioned  a  planet's  fetters,  girders  whose 

grip  shall  hold 

The  bulk  of  the  earth  together,  crumbling  in  final  cold. 
Till  the  heart  of  man  grows  great  as  fate;  till  his  soul 

defies  defeat; 
Here  is  his  spirit's  armor  forged  in  the  fires  that  his 

passions  heat. 

Paris,  4'  21  '08. 


THE  COAL  MINE 

and  crimson  palely  glimmer  where  their 
smoky  skies  are  sinking  low, 
While  with  eyes  that  see  but  dimly  from  the  daylight 

and  the  dawn  they  go; 

Till  the  darkness  of  the  pit  has  claimed  its  own. 
There  they  feel  the  dull  depression  of  the  stirless  and 

the  scentless  air. 
There  is  winter's  endless  midnight  but  no  wind  has 

ever  whispered  there 
And  the  spring  and  fall  and  summer  are  unknown. 

Lost  to  them  are  form  and  color  that  all  other  weary 

mortals  bless. 
All  their  stolid,  pallid  faces  are  unchanging  in  forget- 

fulness. 

Down  the  dimly  lighted  corridors  they  see 
Shapeless  shadows,  lamps  that  flicker,  fading  dreams 

of  what  was  long  ago. 
In  the  tunnels  slowly  sinking  till  at  last  they  meet  the 

night,  they  know 
All  the  brightness  of  the  years  that  are  to  be. 

To  a  slow  and  mournful  cadence,  to  the  labor  of  the 

breath  they  draw; 
Strong  in  patience,  striking  blindly,  they  have  beaten 

down  the  shapes  they  saw. 
14 


The   Coal  Mine  *5 

So  their  ears  grow  deaf  to  voices  from  within. 
Out  of  darkness  into  darkness  in  the  freedom  of  the 

night  they  reel; 
Out  of  weariness  to  slumber;  and  their  masters'  heavy 

hands  they  feel 
Till  they  see  another  dreary  day  begin. 

Buried  sunshine  lost  for  ages  in  the  blackness  of  their 
quest  they  find; 

Brightness  turning  night  to  noonday,  heat  that  warms 

the  heart  of  humankind, 
Power  making  man  the  master  of  the  sea; 

Force  that  fettered  not  forever,  finds  fulfillment  of  it 
self  at  last, 

Steam  that  coils  the  cage's  cables  which  have  linked 

them  to  the  sordid  past; 
To  the  future  when  their  souls  in  strength  go  free. 

New  York,  7'  26  '04. 


THE  MOTOR 

JEHU  was  my  grandsire  grim.     High  Jehovah's 
child 

I  was  born  to  bring  to  you  the  beckon  of  the  wild ; 
Framed  and  fined  to  send  you  forth  through  the  flood 

of  noise 

Where  the  city  chokes  and  sweats;  deathless  girls  and 
boys. 

I  was  wrought  with  Vulcan's  art,  forged  by  Tubal 

Cain. 

Archimedes  measured  me.     Newton's  mighty  brain 
Figured  on  my  formulas.     Thor  my  framework  made. 
Hermes  my  forerunner  was,  god  of  thieves  and  trade. 

Wherefore  in  my  destined  hour  I  was  sent  to  you; 
Speed  and  subtlety  and  power,  pledge  of  kingdoms 

new, 

Herald  of  the  trackless  trail  to  where  the  angels  kneel; 
Child  of  earth's  divine  desire  born  of  fire  and  steel; 

Thunderbolt  of  peace  and  war,  chariot  swift  of  God; 
I  shall  reinforce  your  ranks,  open  paths  untrod; 
Bring  the  dream  that  never  dies  to  shade  the  crowded 
street, 

Swaying  boughs  to  weary  eyes  in  noonday's  fever  heat. 

16 


THe   Motor  17 

Ye  have  filed  the  planets  small.     Air  shod  tires  shall 

roll 

Round  my  orbits  over  all  earth  from  pole  to  pole. 
Ye  have  caged  the  powers  of  air;  pulsing  they  respire 
Hills  of  space,  creation's  stair,  mounting  high  and 

higher. 

Pioneers  and  charioteers;  who  in  wantonness 
Blindly  and  benighted  steers,  sets  the  pace  no  less. 
Reckless  riders  for  the  Throne,  one  eternal  hand 
Holds  my  levers  through  your  own;  and  man  shall 
strive  and  stand. 

All  the  earth  is  speeded  up.     Some  shall  triumph. 

Some 
Whirling  round  the  racing  stars,  hurled  to  kingdom 

come, 
Scorn  the  barriers  dark  of  sleep,  and  storm  the  gates 

of  day. 
Though  our  trail  is  shadowed  deep  the  world  is  on  its 

way. 

Suva  Fiji,  4'  10  '09. 


THE  SEARCH-LIGHTS 

GOD  writes  His  scriptures  still  to-day.    His  mes 
sages  of  light 
Out  of  the  shadow  start  and  stray  away  across  the 

night, 

Through  blinding  seconds  stop  and  stay  to  dazzle 
mortal  sight. 

Whether  from  flaming  battleship  that  hurls  the  bolts 

of  death, 
Or  from  some  tall  skyscraper  tower  while  thousands 

hold  their  breath 
Till  the  last  vote  is  counted  out,  His  final  word  He 

saith ; 

Whether  o'er  Afric  rivers  dark  where  darker  deeds  are 

done, 
Or  where  the  red  aurora's  glare  outshines  the  midnight 

sun, 

Or  where  an  army's  iron  prayer  e'er  daybreak  has 
begun : 

Ever  He  sends   His   ministers.     His   angels    strong 

to-day, 
Soar  through    the    press  room's    roar,  explore    the 

liner's  fog-locked  way; 

New  antitoxines  ever  seek;  new  credits  grant  and  pay. 

18 


THe  SearcH-Lig'Hts  19 

He  sends  His  search-lights  through  the  eyes  that  scan 

the  depths  of  space; 
That  planets  weigh  and  scrutinize.     He  lends  His 

servants  grace, 
His  elements  to  analyze,  His  working  plans  to  trace. 

He  sends  His  search-lights  through  the  sheets  men 

inked  while  millions  slept; 

His  new  beatitudes  repeats  till  babes  that  died  unwept 
In  reeking  slums  and  reckless  streets,  in  mercy's  arms 

have  slept. 

He  sends  His  search-lights   through   the   soul  that 

shrivels  in  its  ray, 
Till  one  that  from  the  millions  stole  shall  shrink,  and 

start  away 
From  focussed  eyes  that  stare  nor  spare,  to  thole  his 

judgment  day. 

His  moving  ringer  points  and  probes.  To  worlds  un 
born  it  knows, 

Where  some  dead  sun  for  centuries  its  final  flicker 
throws 

Across  the  void  as  search -lights  sweep,  His  eye  unerr 
ing  goes. 

Paris,  6'  7  '08. 


THE  TRIP  HAMMER 

1RISE; 
Like  the  wrath  of  the  Lord,  shaking  sea  and  skies, 
Gathered  and  raised  like  a  lifted  fist, 
Threatening  earth  like  a  stormy  cloud 
Where  the  snakes  of  the  lightning  swarm  and  twist; 
Till  the  crash  of  the  thunder  cries  aloud ; 
And  the  bolt  is  loosed,  and  the  levin  flies. 

I  fall; 

Like  the  arm  of  the  Law  that  is  over  all. 

And  the  white  hot  molten  metal  rains 

A  shower  of  sparks  through  the  shadowed  air 

Like  the  thrills  of  a  thousand  travail  pains, 

Till  the  stuff  of  the  soul  is  beaten  bare, 

Flailed  from  its  husk,  and  is  sifted  small. 

I  am 

In  the  army  of  man  its  battering  ram ; 

Welding  the  girders  that  carry  the  track, 

That  fetter  the  void,  that  rout  delay; 

Battering  storm  and  the  blackness  back. 

And  I  forge  the  keel  that  shall  cleave  the  spray, 

And  I  raise  the  real,  and  I  crush  the  sham. 

20 


The  Trip   Hammer  21 

I  mark; 

The  time  of  your  march  from  dawn  to  dark. 

And  my  brothers  roll  on  their  iron  drums 

The  sound  of  the  charge,  and  they  summon  all 

As  the  hour  of  your  fall  or  your  triumph  comes 

Sluggard  and  dreamer,  great  and  small 

To  the  battle  of  life.     You  can  hear  them,  Hark! 

Paris,  ii  '7  '08. 


II— THE  SEA 
THE  LIGHTHOUSE 

I  AM   the  ocean's  finger-post.     Hard  by  its  high 
way  side 
I  watch  the  long  lean  liners  race;  and  tossed  by  wind 

and  tide 

I  see  the  anchored  fishing  boats  at  straining  halters 
ride. 

The  storm  wind's  wolf  pack  round  me  raves  and  gal 
lops  through  the  night. 

In  line  on  line  of  living  graves  the  breakers  slaver 
white, 

Till  hailstones  hurled  from  cloudy  caves  their  clamors 
scourge  and  smite. 

Unstirred  I  stand.     My  shafts  of  light  a  bow  shot 

through  the  storm 
Beat  back  the  murk.     Like  golden  wasps  they  stab 

and  soar  and  swarm, 
Till  sailors'  sinking  hearts  revive;  leap  up  alive  and 

warm. 

Ten  leagues  of  sea,  ten  leagues  of  shore,  my  whirling 
lanterns  sweep 

22 


THe  Lig'HtKouse  23 

With  sleepless  eyes;  and  line  on  line  the  secrets  of  the 

deep 
I  read.     The  blackness  is  my  book  while  vigils  lone  I 

keep. 

Therein  a  gospel  infinite  the  silences  reveal. 

I  telegraph  the  truth  of  it.  The  song  of  steam  and 
steel 

I  set  to  scale.  I  frame  the  phrase  that  men  and  moun 
tains  feel. 

My  beacon  baton  rules  and  sways  the  tempest's 

symphony. 

In  unrevealed  unerring  ways  the  elements  with  me 
In  unison  reiterate,  "In  service  are  we  free." 

I  focus  force  and  faith  in  one.  I  am  night's  burning 
glass. 

I  relay  wireless  messages  of  love  from  burnished  brass. 

I  show  the  spectrum  clear  of  hope  to  souls  that  stran 
gling  pass. 

I  am  the  ocean's  finger-post,  its  pillar  at  the  goal. 
Skyward  I  point  where  planets  all  round  starlit  courses 

'roll; 
Where  flaming  comets  blaze  the  trails,  the  orbits  of  the 

soul. 

New  York,    u'  27  '07. 


THE  CAPTAIN 

NO  chaffroned  charger  forth  I  ride  through  ringing 
lists  to  reel. 
No  silver  trumpet  bids  me  bide  the  shock  of  steeds  and 

steel. 

No  golden  spur  no  valor's  bride  hath  bound  behind  my 
heel. 

But  twice  ten  thousand  horses'  might  is  mine  to  rule 

and  ride. 
My  coursing  ground  hath  utmost  bound  where  ebbs 

the  polar  tide 
With  glaciers'  gleaming  palisades  upreared  on  either 

side. 

They  loose  their  bergs  to  buffet  me,  the  winds  of  all  the 

seas 
Come  urging  surging  squadrons  out  to  leave  me  little 

ease. 
Their  clarions  rage,  the  siren's  shout  makes  symphony 

with  these. 

Sea  mark  and  search-light  share  my  aim  till  battle's 

day  be  born, 
Till  all  my  reeking  battleship,  her  haunches  hacked 

and  torn, 
Shall  hurl  her  freight  of  flying  death  from  out  the 

bloodshot  morn. 

24 


THe   Captain 

Helmed  in  my  conning  tower  I  see  the  stricken  sea 

below. 
I  lash  my  broadsides  through  the  smoke.     Bowed  by 

some  staggering  blow 
I  thrust  my  last  torpedo  forth  to  check  a  charging  foe. 

So  may  I  sink,  so  may  I  swim.     Alone  abides  for  me 
The  winged  victory  of  the  wind  that  rules  the  restless 

sea. 
Our  lady,  steel  thy  soldiers'  hearts  with  strong  sweet 

breath  of  thee. 

New  York,  10'  5  '05. 


THE  MINES 

WE  lurk  in  your  stillest  harbors,  in  your  crowded 
water  ways, 
Till  the  Master's  hand  that  made  us  has  told  its  tale  of 

days, 
And  your  strongest  ships  and  captains  come  charging 

swiftly  by; 

And  then  we  rise  and  smite  them  from  our  ambush 
where  we  lie.' 


Well  may  your  hard  hearts  falter  and  tremble  iron 

nerves. 

A  single  finger's  pressure  for  scarce  a  second  serves, 
And  twenty  thousand  tons  of  steel  and  the  life  and 

death  it  bore 
In  wreck  and  ruin  red  shall  reel.     And  your  millions 

are  no  more. 

For  so  in  tones  of  thunder  to  hardened  ears  we  say, 
"For  every  single  sin  you  sin,  in  some  way  you  shall 

pay." 
And  He  whose  word  eternal  decrees  that  wars  shall 

cease, 
Has  made  us  mouths  to  preach  to  you  the  dearer  price 

of  peace. 

26 


The  Mines  27 

So  shall  you  guard  your  bodies  in  peril  and  distress, 

While  the  many  toil  and  hunger;  that  one  in  wanton 
ness 

May  win  to  wealth  and  mastery ;  who  most  of  all  has 
failed. 

Hath  He  not  mined  your  spirits  too,  whose  strong 
holds  are  assailed? 

Paris,  n'  9  '08. 


THE  FOG 

I  AM  the  reek  of  the  days  that  were  and  the  breath 
of  the  days  to  be. 
All  the  ghosts  of  the  ages  swarm  and  stir  when  my 

hosts  march  in  from  sea; 
Till  they  sink  as  the  twilight  falls  afar,  and  a  deeper 

shade  is  laid 
On  the  sodden  sands,  and  the  stricken  lands  grow  still 

and  sore  afraid, 
And  I  muffle  the  siren's  warning  note  and  I  baffle  the 

lighthouse  beam. 
And  the  greasy  rails  down  their  long  blind  trails  feel 

the  slackening  strength  of  steam. 
And  the  wheels  turn  slow  and  the  fires  grow  low. 

City  and  countryside 
Choke  in  my  grip,  and  sea  and  ship,  where  my  still 

gray  squadrons  ride. 

And  I  pearl  the  long  gray  grasses  by  the  buried  sea 
man's  graves. 

Incense  of  unseen  masses  I  lift  from  my  lone  sea  caves, 

To  the  sound  of  a  sigh  that  passes  in  the  hush  of  the 
winds  and  waves. 

And  I  brood  in  the  silence,  lingering  under  the  shroud 
of  night 

As  a  widowed  mother  waits  for  the  birth  that  brings 
her  babe  to  light, 

28 


The   Fog  29 

On  earth  till  the  birth  of  the  flowers  of  spring  and  the 

blue  bird's  nesting  call. 
And  I  crouch  till  the  stars  grow  clear  again,  till  the 

bars  of  the  morning  fall ; 
Till  I  kiss  the  cheek  of  a  child  that  smiles  e'er  the  sun 

stands  lord  of  all. 

For  I  am  the  darkness,  the  doubt,  the  dread  that  stifle 

your  hopes  and  prayers, 
I  am  the  fears  of  your  fathers  dead, 'and  their  mothers' 

tears  and  cares. 
I  am  the  lives  that  start  and  lurk  when  the  brightest 

noon  burns  dim 
In  the  shadows  cold,  in  the  mist  and  murk  of  the  slum's 

blind  menace  grim. 
I  am  the  strong  man's  well  of  strength,  and  the  ford 

where  the  coward  falls, 
And  the  gate  that  shall  wait  for  all  at  length  through 

the  everlasting  walls; 
Spores  as  of  hoarfrost  sifted  o'er  the  fruitful  field  of 

night; 

Shreds  of  a  banner  rifted  where  dying  heroes  fight ; 
Or  a  curtain  caught  and  lifted  when  you  wake  to  a 

world  of  light. 

5.  S.  Amerika,  i'  7  '07. 


THE  WAVE 

OUT  of  the  darkness  of  time  and  the  stress  of  an 
impulse  unending, 
Out  of  the  deep  I  arise,  and  shoreward  unresting  I 

roll; 
Till  the  breaker  resounds  on  the  beach  and  it  curls 

and  it  crashes  descending, 

And  rending  the  sands  it  subsides ;  and  is  scattered 
and  swept  from  its  goal. 

I  am  the  impact  of  light  on  your  eyes,  and  the  glow 

and  the  gleam  of  the  vision. 
I  am  a  second  of  sound  and  the  echo  that  stirs  in 

the  brain ; 
And  the  past  that  awakes  and  regrets  and  aspires;  and 

the  hope  of  a  harbor  Elysian, 

Lost    and   recalled    and    disowned    and   restored, 
through  a  lifetime  of  passion  and  pain. 

I  am  the  march  of  events  past  the  purpose  that  cradles 

creation ; 
And  the  end  of  your  millions  of  lives  like  the  foam 

bells  that  whiten  and  fade; 
And  the  roll  of  the  drums  down  the  ranks,  and    the 

charge  of  the  steel  crested  wrath  of  a  nation. 
I  am  the  wailing  of  women  that  bury  their  dead  in 
the  shade. 

I  am  the  round  of  the  seasons;  the  rose  of  the  summer 
unfolding; 

30 


The  Wave  31 

Swelling  of   sap  in  the  spring,  and  its  shrinkage 

when  winter  turns  white. 
I  am  the  song  of  your  youth,  and  your  autumn  its 

bleakness  beholding, 
I  am  the  burden  and  the  heat  of  the  day,  and  the 

shadows  and  dreams  of  the  night. 

I  am  the  beat  of  your  heart,  and  the  breath  that  you 

draw  when  the  morning 
Rises  in  fire  on  the  hills;  and  the  setting  of  moon, 

and  of  sun. 
I  am  the  crest  of  to-day,  and  the  fortune  that  fails 

without  warning; 

And  the  triumph  that  fades;  and  the  struggle  with 
death;  and  the  rest  when  the  battle  is  done. 

I  am  the  spray  that  is  scattered ;  the  laughter  and  loves 

of  the  city. 
I  am  the  darkness  below  and  the  lives  that  the 

weight  of  the  world  shall  sustain. 
I  am  the  sorrow  that  sobs  in  the  sea,  and  the  tides  of 

an  infinite  pity; 

And  the  whisper  of  winds,  and  the  smile  of  a  child, 
and  the  ripple  and  rush  of  the  rain. 

I  am  the  passion  whose  strength  is  a  snare,  and  the 

love  whose  redemption  is  friendless, 
I  am  your  soul's  resurrection  from  sin  and  from 

shame  and  the  grave ; 
Growth  of  the  grain,  and  the  travail  of  life  that  toils 

through  eternities  endless. 

I  am  the  pulse  of  the  cosmos  whose  life  is  to  God  as 
a  wave. 

Paris,  1 1 '  25  '08. 


BEYOND  THE  SEA 

BEYOND  the  sea  the  sun  goes  down. 
The  gray  gulls  follow  in  his  wake. 
There  towering  ships  their  cargoes  take. 
There  troop  the  clouds.     There  would  I  be 
In  some  fantastic  foreign  town, 
Where  waves  on  coral  beaches  break ; 
And  brawny  boatmen,  bare  and  brown, 
Ply  through  the  surf  beyond  the  sea. 

Beyond  the  sea  they  traffic  there 

In  ambergris  and  frankincense; 

Strange  furs  that  floor  barbaric  tents, 

And  ostrich  eggs  and  ivory; 

And  sandal  wood  and  camel's  hair; 

And  uncut  rubies,  rare,  immense; 

That  women  round  their  foreheads  wear 

In  wonderlands  beyond  the  sea. 

Beyond  the  sea  the  temple  bells 
Are  calling  Buddhist  priests  to  prayer. 
There  war  drums  tear  the  tropic  air. 
The  monsoon  sighs  incessantly; 
The  mueddin  calls,  the  jackal  yells, 
The  serpent  charmer's  fife  is  there. 
And  still  the  mingled  murmur  swells 
And  fills  my  ears  beyond  the  sea. 
32 


Beyond  tHe  Sea  33 

From  every  weary  breaker  wells 
Resistlessly,  implacably; 
In  every  heart  forever  dwells; 
Unsatisfied,  beyond  the  sea. 

Long  Beach,  2'  26  '04. 


THE  COAL  PASSERS 

FULL  speed  it  is.     The  gauges  rise.     Each  lip  of 
vivid  rose 
That  grins  around  its  furnace  door,  intense,  insistent, 

glows, 
Fast  gape  and  glut  the  mouths  of  fire.     Hearts  in  hot 

haste  shall  beat. 
And  lungs  shall  strain  to  drink  and  drain  the  torment 

tides  of  heat. 
For  wind  and  wave  have  lift  them  up  to  rave  against 

our  way, 
And  we  that  heed  our  engines*  need  their  iron  law 

obey. 

This  was  the  law  that  once  we  saw  afar  and  unawares. 
Now  every  yawning  molten  maw  the  gate  of  judgment 

flares. 
Stripped  to  the  waist  we  hurl  in  haste  the  black,  the 

naked  soul, 
To  feed  the  fast  devouring  flame  that  leaps  to  lick  the 

coal. 
Earth's  power-house  is  stoked  in  hell.     None  knew  it 

more  than  we 
That  drive  ten  thousand  tons  along  a  thousand  leagues 

of  sea. 

34 


THe  Coal  Passers 


35 


Ten  thousand  tons,  a  thousand  lives,  a  world  that 

holds  its  course 
By  night  and  day  through  fog  and  fray  of  waves,  and 

braves  their  force; 
Unerring  as  the  planet's  sweep  athwart  the  gulf  of 

sky. 
This  was  the  tale  that  once  we  told  to  girls  in  days 

gone  by. 
Midmost  a  silver  sea  we  hung,  the  winds,  the  world 

asleep ; 
While  silver  stars  in  order  swung  across  the  upper 

deep. 

Those  starry  nights,  those  harbor  lights,  those  girls 

with  eager  eyes 
Must  watch  and  wait  alone  and  late,  till  love  deluded 

dies. 
Bare  in  the  blinding  furnace  glare  our  heritage  we 

know, 
Held  fast  upon  one  half-inch  plate.     A  mile  of  sea 

below 
Drops  black  and  sheer  and  deadly  near.     Grip  tight 

the  brands  that  burn, 
And  seethe  and  sear,  to  banish  fear;  till  faith  and 

hope  return. 

Though  we  to  harlot  ports  have  thrown  our  youth,  our 

years  away; 
And  squandered  more  than  was  our  own,  we  may  be 

men  to  pay. 
Our  drunken  eyes  by  pain  made  wise,  here  wings  of 

fire  shall  see; 


36  The  Coal  Passers 

That  veil  a  shrine  where  halos  shine,  where  high 

archangels  be. 
Not  all  of  us  shall  sink  to  shame;  my  brothers  born  to 

strife, 
The  wrestle  of  the  winds  and  flame;  the  firing  line  of 

life. 

New  York,  12'  9  '03. 


THE  LINER 

WHEN  the  world  in  the  womb  of  the  midnight 
weighed  the  High  God  moulded  me. 
And  He  fined  my  lines  to  a  scale  He  made  or  e'er  was 

air  or  sea ; 

Or  harbors  or  ocean  lanes  He  laid  on  the  chart  of  a 
world  to  be. 

When  He  breathed  on  the  void  with  the  breath  of  life, 
e'er  He  quickened  the  soul  of  man; 

E'er  He  whetted  His  will  as  one  whets  a  knife;  while 
the  lava  rivers  ran; 

The  shell  of  my  hull  in  His  hills  He  hid  till  the  iron 
years  began. 

Out  of  His  spirit's  treasuries  His  dauntless  captains 

came. 
Out  of  His  hoards  on  the  mountainside  His  miners 

fed  the  flame. 
From  the  bridal  red  of  coal  and  steel  I  sped  His  tides 

to  tame. 

Man  that  hath  bridled  and  saddled  me  with  a  harness 

soft  of  steam; 
Rides  through  the  riot  of  wind  and  sea  where  the 

breakers  roll  abeam; 
Spurs  through  the  midnight's  mystery  while  the  stars 

his  sign-posts  gleam. 

37 


38  THe  Liner 

He  has  filled  me  with  force,  and  the  food  that  slays 

famine  in  foreign  lands. 
He  has  set  me  my  course  that  no  storm  delays.     On 

my  ice  bound  bridge  he  stands. 
Like  a  foam  flecked  horse  my  speed  he  sways ;  and  his 

soul  my  strength  commands. 

He  has  filled  me  with  fever,  filth,  and  crime  that  breed 

my  bowels  within 
As  they  breed  in  His  till  the  destined  time  when  the 

judgments  black  begin; 
And  the  germ  of  the  stagnant  steerage  slime  is  the  seed 

of  a  nation's  sin. 

Laughter  of  children,  lilt  of  song,  and  the  prayer  of 

love  I  freight, 
And  the  master  builder's  purpose  strong,  and  failure 

desolate; 
And  the  pilgrim  hopes  and  fears  that  throng  through 

the  new  world's  water  gate. 

And  they  pass  and  scatter  like  the  spray,  and  day  by 

day  goes  by. 
And  night  by  night  I  plow  my  way  through  a  gulf  of 

starlit  sky, 
Where  planets  lone  one  law  obey;  the  same  as  you 

and  I. 

Paris,  10'  14  '08. 


THE  SANDS 

ONCE  we  were  not.    Wind  and  sea  round  the  lava 
turned  to  stone 
Made  the  sea  cliffs.     Somberly  boulders  ground  to 

pebbles  shone. 

Scaled  and  screened  and  sifted,  we  in  our  multitudes 
were  known. 

Round  the  shores  of  all  the  earth  in  a  long,  unbroken 

line 

In  a  girdle  gem  besprent,  gleaming  in  the  sun  we  shine, 
Smooth  and  hard  and  redolent  of  the  fragrance  of  the 

brine. 

We  make  white  her  marriage  bed  where  the  passion 
of  the  tides 

Foaming  mounts  to  meet  the  moon,  over  her  remorse 
less  rides, 

Has  its  moment  and  departs;  lies  in  wait,  in  shadow 
hides. 

We  are  earthworks.  Where  the  rocks,  castles  breached 

by  waves,  must  fall ; 
We  sustain  their  wildest  shocks.     Past  our  harbor 

bars  they  crawl. 

Sanctuary  from  the  storm,  refuge  free  we  grant  to  all. 

39 


4°  THe  Sands 

We  are  snares,  our  shallows  lie  underneath  the  smiling 

sea; 
Lure  the  sailors  till  the  sky  changes,  blackens;  hard 

alee, 
Gleaming  breakers  surging  high,  shout  our  sirens' 

threnody. 

We   are   scourges   where   the   dunes   rank   by   rank 

devouring  go; 
Shoreward  march,  and  spoil  the  soil;  lay  your  farms 

and  houses  low; 
Till  you  plant  the  creeping  things  that  slowly  bind  and 

break  their  blow. 

So  we  symbol  all  the  souls  of  the  multitudes  that  lie 
Near  the  last  frontier  of  life  and  the  strife  of  sea  and 

sky. 
Time  his  tides  around  them  rolls,  day  and  night  that 

pass  them  by. 

Small  essential  atoms  all,  daily  stronger  than  before; 
For  the  mighty  are  made  small;  ever  farther  spreads 

the  shore. 
Rocks  and  cliffs  and  mountains  fall,  and  the  sands 

are  more  and  more. 

These  ye  have  to  reckon  with  who  are  masters  here 

to-day. 
You  must  learn  the  primal  law  that  both  sands  and 

souls  obey; 
Learn  the  meaning  of  their  march,  senseless,  slow,  and 

grim  and  gray. 


THe  Sands  41 

That  you  lay  your  forests  low,  bare  your  lives  to  storm 

and  sand; 
Slum  and  mill  by  millions  know.     Hardly  shall  you 

understand 
Channels  choke,  and  shallows  grow,  and  dunes  arise, 

and  eat  the  land. 

Paris,  iT  20  '08. 


ONCE  I  rose  i 
the  hills; 


THE  DERELICT 

in  freedom  where  the  sunrise  crowns' 


Where  in  serried  columns,  rippling  seaward  race  the 

rills; 
Where  the  voice  of  ocean  through  the  pine  trees  calls 

and  thrills. 

Then  they  felled  and  branded  me  and  flayed  my 

strength  with  steel; 
Forged  the  rusting  fetters  that  my  festered  flesh  must 

feel; 
Fashioned  bolt  and  plate  and  plank,  and  mast  and 

spar  and  keel. 

I  was  thrust  into  the  deep  to  float  or  founder  there, 
Outcast  of  the  endless  streets  where  stars  from  heaven 

stare ; 
Every  rock  a  stumbling  block,  and  every  shoal  a 

snare. 

Men  have  had  their  will  with  me  while  heaven's  stars 

were  white; 
Raped  and  robbed  me  of  my  youth  and  beauty  and 

delight; 
Fleeing  from  the  wrath  to  come,  have  left  me  in  the 

night. 

42 


THe  Derelict  43 

In  the  night  I  lie  and  lurk,  derelict  and  black, 
Till  I  drift  into  the  liner's  fog- beleaguered  track 
Till  a  thousand  dive  to  death;  and  never  one  comes 
back. 

You  shall  build  your  lighthouses,  chart  and  sound  your 

seas. 

Still  I  spoil  your  argosies  and  bring  you  to  your  knees; 
Still  the  ocean's  waste  infect  with  ruin  and  unease. 

Wanton,  wasted,  water  logged,  waiting  for  the  day 
When  the  dark  destroyer's  shells  shall  shred  my  flesh 

away; 
When  my  bridegroom  of  the  storm  no  longer  shall 

delay. 

Sydney,  4*  5  '09. 


Ill— WOMEN 
MOTHERHOOD 

NOW  is  it  springtime  in  a  fruitful  land. 
Heaven  has  drawn  near  to  earth  in  April  rain, 
Out  of  their  close  embrace  the  growth  of  grain, 
The  flowers  that  on  her  face  like  flushes  stand, 
The  bridal  whiteness  of  the  orchard  trees, 
The  little  leaves  that  whisper  to  the  breeze, 
The  new-born  baby  buds  that  bless  the  sun, 
The  birds  that  sing  of  summer  just  begun, 
Of  homes  and  households  that  are  yet  to  be ; 
Are  all  around  me,  all  akin  in  me. 

The  south  wind  and  the  sunshine  warm  the  blood, 
The  scent  of  growing  grass  is  strong  and  sweet, 
Through  all  the  trees,  all  flowers  that  fleck  my  feet, 
The  sap  streams  upward  in  a  rising  flood ; 
The  tide  of  spring  that  surges  toward  the  sky, 
The  sharp  sweet  thrill  that  flutters,  strives  to  fly, 
That  pulses  fast,  that  beats  beneath  my  heart 
Trying  to  tear  this  cage  of  flesh  apart ; 
Of  me  shall  soon  be  born  a  winged  thing, 
A  soul  that  seeks  to  soar;  that  dumb  would  sing. 


MotKerKood  4$ 

To-day  it  sings  in  me  beside  the  sea. 

I  am  a  mouth  that  utters  nature's  word ; 

The  secret  whisper  in  the  midnight  heard, 

Longing  for  life  and  love  and  liberty. 

I  am  fulfilled,  my  womanhood  awake, 

Waxing  like  waves  that  swell  before  they  break, 

Tossing  aside  their  fading  flowers  of  foam. 

Life  by  my  heart  hid,  must  you  haste  from  home? 

Ah,  but  the  flowers  that  fall  beneath  the  frost! 

Soul  of  my  soul,  we  shall  not  all  be  lost. 

S.  S.  Bremen,  7'  24  '05. 


THE  INCOMMENSURABLE 

OUR  life  is  the  river  of  space. 
And  death  is  the  brink  of  the  falls 
Where  the  star  drift  is  foam  on  its  face. 
And  time  is  a  shadow  that  crawls. 

And  our  love  is  our  ultimate  breath; 
The  throb  of  two  hearts  through  the  void; 
The  long  sigh  in  the  silence  of  death 
Till  the  fetters  of  flesh  are  destroyed. 

Can  you  measure  the  round  of  the  sky? 
Can  you  reckon  the  race  of  the  sun? 
Can  you  fathom  the  depth  of  the  eye 
That  has  mirrored  creation  in  one? 

Have  you  found  her,  the  motive  of  life, 
And  the  symphony's  holiest  theme? 
The  beloved,  the  mother,  the  wife; 
And  the  real  that  remains  from  the  dream? 

Though  the  planets  are  parcelled  and  weighed 
By  your  wit;  and  the  walls  of  the  heart 
By  your  scalpel;  though  talons  of  trade 
Tear  the  bowels  of  the  mountains  apart: 
46 


THe   Incommensurable  47 

All  your  labors  are  houses  of  sand, 
Such  as  children  have  built  by  the  sea. 
All  our  arts  but  as  bubbles  expand, 
And  have  ceased  while  beginning  to  be. 

All  our  works  are  as  grains  of  the  sand, 
All  our  words  as  the  gleam  of  the  snow. 
We  who  sorrow  alone  understand. 
You  must  lose  her,  and  find  her,  and  know. 

New  York,  12'  2  '04. 


THE  ULTIMATE 

BETTER  you  know  yourself  now,  knowing  her; 
Feeling  the  brute  from  its  lair  in  you  stir, 
Leap  to  its  mate;  and  unleashed  like  its  prey 
Sated  and  senseless,  lie  sleeping  till  day. 

Waking  you  looked  at  her,  alien  and  strange, 
Fetter  of  flesh  for  your  soul  that  must  range; 
Shrank  from  her,  hated  her.     Sudden  she  smiled. 
She  was  an  animal  changed  to  a  child. 

Yes,  she  is  animal  yet  most  of  all. 
Nature  that  mothers  and  nurses  us;  small, 
Shallow,  inscrutable,  furtive,  and  sly; 
Instinct  that  lies  while  her  eyes  meet  your  eye. 

There  she  lies  nude  in  her  litter  of  lace; 
Childish  and  crude,  and  your  freedom's  disgrace. 
With  her  you  sounded  the  depths.     Shall  you  rise? 
She  is  a  soul  in  her  body's  disguise. 

Back  to  the  primitive  nature  to-day 
Strong  in  you  summons  you.     Take  her  away. 
Turn  to  the  mountains.     Earn  slumber  like  lead; 
Nerves  that  have  tortured  you  dormant  and  dead. 

48 


The  Ultimate  49 

Climb  with  her.     Struggle  o'er  rock-leage  and  shelf. 
Helping  her  grow  with  her  stronger  yourself. 
Pause  for  the  vistas,  drink  deep  of  the  air. 
Gather  her  flowers  where  each  is  a  prayer. 

Strive  with  her.     Thrive  with  her,  patient  and  wise, 
Faithful,  enduring,  and  fitter  to  rise. 
You  were  her  guide.     Will  you  hinder  or  aid 
Now  that  her  soul  has  the  summit  assayed? 

This  is  your  ultimate;  barriers  and  bars, 
Rounds  in  its  ladder  like  children  and  stars. 

Paris,  12'  15  '09. 


THE  MOTHER 

HER  world  within  her  arms  she  holds 
Heart  to  her  heart,  the  life  to  be; 
From  her  own  flesh  an  image  moulds; 
In  infant  eyes  she  seeks  to  see 
The  best  of  all  that  gave  her  birth, 
Mirrors  of  heaven  made  on  earth. 

The  mysteries  of  ages  past 
Have  made  her  Sybil,  prophetess. 
She  scans  the  future's  purpose  vast 
In  this  her  son.     To-day's  caress 
While  Cosmos  halts  to  question  here 
Is  Delphic  portent — smile  or  tear. 

Oh,  Mother,  may  thine  arms  be  strong! 
Weigh  love  with  justice.     Even  so 
A  little  moment,  not  for  long, 
Thine  is  the  balance,  weal  or  woe. 
And  tremble  not  to  take  the  scales; 
For  by  thy  faith  he  wins  or  fails. 

New  York,  3'  4  '02. 


THE  LIFE  CLASS 

PAST  wasted  color  splashed  on  grimy  walls 
Like  sunset  hues,  or  fires  that  flare  at  dawn 
Through  life's  gray  monotone,  the  eye  is  drawn 
To  the  white  central  shape  that  voiceless  calls. 

For  here  is  Woman  waiting  pale  and  still, 

Essential,  silent,  stripped  of  vanity, 

Bare  to  the  soul  that  has  the  eyes  to  see, 

The  strength  and  weakness  that  within  her  thrill. 

Look  well  0  artist.     Balance  light  and  shade, 
Lend  the  bare  breast  a  prophet's  tenderness, 
Till  children  nestle  there.     Express  no  less 
The  flesh  superb  that  nature  naked  made, 

Like  some  white  pedestal  that  shall  enthrone 
A  soul  new  risen  to  the  lips  and  eyes. 
Some  street  drab,  drifted  here,  in  dumb  surmise 
Seeing  your  likeness,  may  fulfill  her  own. 

She  stands  the  symbol  of  her  sisters  all; 
Mother  and  wife  and  wanton,  child  and  saint; 
Into  man's  hands  ordained  to  teach  or  taint, 
Whether  his  art  on  earth  be  great  or  small. 

5< 


52  TKe  Life  Class 

Not  all  the  honors  that  his  peers  confer; 
Wisdom,  achievement,  riches,  fame,  command; 
Shall  test  the  soul  that  is  to  fall  or  stand ; 
As  what  he  makes  or  fails  to  make  of  her. 

Paris,  4'  28  '08. 


THE  CAT 

AIN'T  women  cats?    They  fs  kittens  when  they  fs 
small. 

That 's  evolution.     When  they  's  grown  most  all 
Are  much  the  same.     They  call  each  other  so. 
Sometimes  the  truth  by  instinct  like  they  know. 
They  yawn,  and  lick  their  fur,  and  trim  their  duds, 
And  when  you  stroke  them  right  they  're  smooth  as 

suds. 

And  when  you  stroke  them  wrong  it  ain't  no  joke. 
They  'd  rather  have  that  though  than  ne'er  a  stroke. 
They  stretch  and  purr,  and  sidle  round  and  creep 
Into  your  lap  and  cuddle,  go  to  sleep, 
When  you  don't  want  them  much.     And  when  you  do 
It  takes  a  year  to  coax  them  back  to  you. 
Lord,  how  they  scratch.     They  's  the  most  cruel  thing 
To  mice  and  kids  they  hate.     And  when  they  sing— 
Me  to  the  timber  tall !     That 's  common  ones. 
The  best,  there  's  nothing  better  all  God's  suns 
Have  ever  shone  on  or  shall  ever  see; 
One  in  a  million — maybe  two  or  three. 
And  how  they  hate  each  other,  when  the  men 
Won't  go  round  right.     That 's  nature's  plan  again. 
Give  them  a  house  and  babies  of  their  own, 
A  master  who  will  let  them  well  alone, 

53 


54  THe  Cat 

But  not  too  long;  they  're  almost  happy  till 
He  has  to  scare  them.     Let  them  lap  their  fill 
Till  their  fur  shines  and  others  envy  them ; 
Give  them  a  chance  their  sisters  to  condemn 
For  what  they  want  themselves;  they  '11  love  you  so. 
And  in  their  heart  of  hearts  this  truth  they  know. 
I  'm  one  myself.     That  *s  why  I  'm  bound  to  say 
We  always  have  to  give  ourselves  away. 

Paris,  12'  2  '08. 


THE  MIRROR 

PHIS  is  the  empty  room  where  once  she  dwelt 

1       Before  she  went  away, 
This  is  the  glass  that  her  soft  breath  has  felt 
Upon  it  day  by  day. 

This  is  the  frame  that  held  her  portrait  dear, 
Too  perfect  long  to  last. 
So  when  I  held  her  closest,  warm  and  near 
Into  the  void  she  passed. 

There  is  an  empty  chamber  in  my  heart, 
Silent  and  clean  and  cold, 
And  there  when  twilight  falls  I  walk  apart 
There  for  an  hour  grown  old. 

There  is  a  mirror  there,  wherein  she  stands 
A  spirit  pale  and  dim, 
Lifting  to  me  in  silence  tender  hands 
Held  fast  by  seraphim. 

Earth  in  its  shifting  orbit  sees  the  sun 
Fulfill  the  shades  of  night. 
Another  here  shall  do  what  she  has  done, 
Let  in  new  air  and  light. 
55 


56  TKe  Mirror 

Children  shall  come  and  stand  where  once  she  stood ; 
Where  children  long  ago 

When  to  our  fathers  life  and  love  seemed  good, 
Learned  wistful  lips  to  know. 

But  in  the  land  beyond  the  mirror's  gates, 
Beyond  its  bars  of  air, 

There  is  a  room  wherein  she  smiles  and  waits 
Forever  first  and  fair. 

Paris,  4'  14  '08. 


DUST  DEVILS  (LES  MONDAINES) 

WE  have  no  breath  to  say  one  word.     We  have  no 
time.     But  still  we  must. 
To-day  our  shallow  souls  are  stirred  though  we  are 

children  of  the  dust. 
To-day  there  came  a  circling  gust  of  winds  that  sweep 

to  wider  things, 

To  higher,  truer  too  we  trust;  and  on  its  eddies  we 
have  wings. 

And  yet  we  know  it  cannot  last.     We  have  no  hope 

to  stir  and  save. 
We  have  forgotten  all  the  past,  the  sense  of  loss  the 

parting  gave. 
We  have  no  faith.     We   cannot  sec.     There  may  be 

stars  but  we  are  blind. 
We  have   no  love.     Eternity  may  warm   our  ashes 

unresigned. 

But  we  are  old  and  we  are  cold,  unresting  ghosts  of 
days  gone  by; 

Seraglio  slaves  our  mothers  sold  for  man's  delight  to 
dance  and  die. 

Our  sinful  sisters  walk  the  streets.  We  have  no 
strength,  no  skill  to  sin. 

In  them  the  world's  red  life  blood  beats,  and  love  re 
demption  sore  may  win. 

57 


58         Dxist  Devils  (Les  Mondaines) 

But  we  are  passionless  and  pale  or  flushed  with  sunset's 

fitful  glow. 
And  in  the  night  we  fade  and  fail.     The  depths  of  life 

we  never  know. 
We  see  the  children  of  our  friends,  we  clasp  them  close. 

They  never  smile. 
They  shun  our  kisses.     So  it  ends,  the  flame  that 

flickered  for  a  while. 

For  we  are  dead.     And  yet  we  bear  contagion  to  the 

world  around; 
The  dust  whose  clouds  obscure  the  air,  that  lies  a 

blight  upon  the  ground, 
That  blinds  the  eyes,  that  color  steals  and  light  and 

truth  from  living  things, 
That  chokes  the  throat,  that  clogs  the  wheels,  that  far 

and  wide  pollution  flings. 

For  wheels  must  turn,  and  fires  must  burn,  and  dust 
and  ashes  we  are  made, 

And  seeds  of  death,  that  men  may  learn  in  us  them 
selves  are  most  betrayed ; 

That  love  and  sorrow,  fire  and  tears  might  mould  our 
clay  to  life  again, 

Who  line  the  highway  of  the  years  and  for  our  waking 
wait  in  vain. 

And  other  women    envied    us.     They  taught   their 

daughters  such  as  we 
Are  rich  and  rare  and  meritous.     And  as  we  were  they 

strove  to  be. 


Dust  Devils  (Lea  Mondaines)          59 

Forbear  and  spare.     Our  vanity  is  made  the  limbo  of 

our  haste, 
They  will  not  hear.     They  cannot  see  the  wind  that 

whirls  along  the  waste. 

And  we  must  dance  with  it  to-day.     But  if  one  other 

wakes  again 
Who  hears  our  prayer,  and  turns  away;  we  have  not 

lived  and  died  in  vain. 

Paris,  12'  5  '08. 


THE  HILLTOP 

THERE  is  a  hilltop  where  I  go 
When  evening  turns  to  afterglow, 
And  broken  wracks  and  wrecks  of  day 
Into  the  darkness  drift  away. 
Salt  blows  the  wind  there  from  the  sea 
And  on  its  breath  she  comes  to  me. 

There  is  a  hilltop  of  the  morn 
Where  Bethlehem  each  day  reborn 
Thrones  its  Madonna.     At  her  shrine 
I  offer  gifts.     And  wings  divine, 
And  winds  of  heaven  worship  there, 
And  kings  and  shepherds  meet  in  prayer. 

There  is  a  hilltop  of  the  night, 
Where  heaven's  myriad  trails  of  light 
Exalt  their  vistas  wide  and  far, 
And  lure  the  soul  from  star  to  star; 
Where  moonlit  pools  of  silver  sheen 
Ripple  and  purge  my  passion  clean. 

There  is  a  hilltop  of  the  noon 
Where  life  in  flood  is  lapped  in  June, 
Prone  on  the  scented  turf  I  lie 
And  count  our  castles  in  the  sky 
And  watch  the  clouds  slow  blossoming 
Unfolding  all  the  years  shall  bring. 
60 


The   Hilltop  61 

There  is  a  hilltop  of  the  heart 

And  while  she  dreams  and  prays  apart; 

Her  eyes  have  caught  the  sunrise  there, 

And  twilight  tangled  in  her  hair 

Is  waiting  till  I  climb  that  hill, 

And  hearts  throb  loud,  though  lips  are  still. 

Auckland,  3'  26  '09. 


LOVE  LETTERS  OF  A  MOTHER,  VII 

TO-DAY  my  baby  learned  to  walk  alone. 
Each  little  step  he  staggered  from  my  arms 
Into  his  future's  fortunes,  far,  unknown, 
Was  dogged  by  furtive  fears  and  faint  alarms 
That  ghostlike  trooped  before  him  and  behind ; 
That  dimmed  his  smile  with  tears  that  left  me  blind. 

I  had  so  loved  the  life  that  all  was  mine, 
That  waked  within  me  quickened  like  a  flame; 
That  leapt  to  light  through  pain's  red  flare  divine, 
That  round  about  my  breast  devouring  came, 
Drawing  from  me  immortal  life  and  heat: 
Dear  little  lips  with  kisses  piercing  sweet. 

Now  is  he  weaned  and  walks,  and  all  goes  well. 

Already  be  begins  his  baby  words. 

His  own  life's  story  tries  to  all  to  tell 

In  accents  sweeter  than  the  song  of  birds. 

And  through  my  tears  my  heart  his  laughter  hears 

And  treasures  all  against  the  tyrant  years. 

Life  is  too  frail  to  turn  its  pages  back. 
So  we  must  find  them  fairest  once  for  all ; 
Snatch  for  to-day  lest  we  to-morrow  lack. 
He  must  go  forth  to  struggle,  stand  or  fall. 
Let  me  be  nearest,  dearest  by  thy  side 
Until  the  unveiled  future  brings  its  bride. 

New  York,  ;'  12  '05. 
62 


IV— SCIENCE 
WIRELESS 

WE  listen  to  new  oracles  across  the  darkest  night, 
Interpreting  the  void  to  those  that  may  not 
read  aright. 
We  see  the  bottled  lightning  seethe  in  serried  Leyden 

jars; 

The  rapid  fire  that  crashes,  hear  through  strange  sym 
phonic  bars. 

We  know  that  other  instruments  are  tuned  to  answer 

ours; 
Beyond  the  bounds  of  mortal  sense  a  host  of  allied 

powers 
March  on  to  beat  the  blackness  back;  and  matter's 

brutal  odds 
Thrill  to  the  martial  music  of  men  and  demigods. 

Across  the  wrath  of  oceans,  round  the  rocks  that  rend 

and  slay 
The  spars  lift  up  their  signals  like  hands  upraised  to 

pray. 
Unseen  and  unsolicited   they  make   their  message 

known. 
And  men  that  seek  an  unknown  God  come  closer  to 

their  own. 

63 


64  Wireless 

The  fleshless  fingers  beckon.     They  baffle  fog  and 

storm, 

The  letters  of  infinity's  mute  alphabet  they  form, 
While  voiceless  angels  silent  throng,  for  mortal  hearing 

seek 
Of  Him  who  to  His  blind  gives  sight  and  makes  His 

dumb  to  speak. 

Paris,  7'  1 8  '08. 


THE  X-RAYS 

YOU  love  her  better  than  your  life, 
And  now  the  hour  has  come. 
Her  tender  flesh  shall  feel  the  knife, 
Your  throttled  heart  be  dumb. 

You  see  the  clotted  seeds  of  death 
Inside  her,  this  alone. 
The  pulse  grows  faint.     The  vital  breath 
Eludes  its  cage  of  bone. 

And  that  grim  skeleton  that  all 
Our  strength  and  beauty  bears 
Essential  looms.     The  flesh  its  thrall 
Each  second  thinner  wears. 

Another  surgeon's  hand  shall  lay 
The  inner  tissues  bare. 
With  bleeding  lips  you  strive  to  pray 
Who  say,  "There  is  no  prayer." 

This  you  believe.     We  feel  and  see 
(Ye  blind  that  lead  the  blind) 
Though  life  to-morrow  may  not  be 
When  death  leaves  dust  behind, 
si  65 


66  The  X-Rays 

New  stars  unborn  you  demonstrate 
Beyond  our  range  of  sight. 
New  germs  of  life's  last  ultimate 
Your  lenses  bring  to  light. 

Your  spirit  sickens.     Toil  and  hope 
For  science  nears  its  goal. 
The  mind  shall  find  its  microscope, 
New  X-rays  save  the  soul. 

Paris,  12*  19  '09. 


ANTITOXINE 

THIS  is  the  secret  that  nature  concealed; 
Who  out  of  ether  her  elements  wrought, 
Out  of  them  mind;  till  to-day  has  revealed 
Part  of  the  purpose  of  infinite  thought. 

Pharaohs  and  priests  with  their  Pyramids  passed, 
Monarchs,  inquisitors  blind  led  the  blind. 
Man  tore  the  scales  from  his  eyes,  and  at  last 
Sees  himself  fit  their  resultant  to  find. 

Under  the  test  tube  a  colorless  flame 
Rises  like  science  transforming  the  race. 
Doubt  and  disease  and  decadence  and  shame 
Fail,  and  for  larger  fruition  make  place. 

Germ  and  bacillus  are  marshalled  and  scanned, 
Microbes  benign  are  enlisted  to  serve, 
March  and  assault  at  the  Master's  command, 
Fortify  faltering  sinew  and  nerve. 

Death  wavers  back ;  and  life's  columns  advance. 
Powers  of  darkness  from  sick  bed  and  slum, 
Turn  to  retreat;  and  the  world  from  its  trance 
Wakes  and  is  strong.     And  each  day  adds  its  sum. 


68  Antitoxine 

Life's  true  elixir  the  chemist  has  found. 
Lifting  his  test  tube  in  silence  he  stands ; 
Knows  that  a  Greater  environs  him  round, 
Life  in  solution  upraised  in  His  hands. 

New  York,  8'  7  '09. 


RADIUM 

LIFE  on  this  planet  is  death  and  decay. 
The  desert  grows  greater,  the  air  wastes  away. 
Laughter  and  love  and  their  infinite  cost 
Dwindle  and  fail  till  the  ultimate  frost. 

Life  in  each  one  of  us  runs  to  its  end. 

Age  is  a  desert,  the  shadows  descend. 

Cold  grow  the  heart  and  its  hopes  until  death 

Wipes  from  our  lips  the  last  measure  of  breath. 

Farther  the  frost  line  shall  creep  from  the  poles, 
Doubt  and  disaster  shall  deaden  your  souls. 
Coal-fields  are  wasted.     The  lava  is  cold. 
Gorged  on  earth's  vitals  the  race  has  grown  old. 

Spirits  decay,  and  our  millions  are  more. 
We  have  forgotten  to  pray  and  adore. 
Honor  is  lost  or  is  held  at  a  price. 
Virtue  is  vain  and  the  victim  of  vice. 

We  are  degenerate,  false  and  unfit, 
Millions  that  race  to  the  verge  of  the  pit; 
Blinded,  stampeded,  to  blackness  we  go, 
Never  an  echo  is  heard  from  below. 

69 


7°  IVadixim 

Yet  the  unfit  shall  its  fitness  evolve. 
Enters  a  factor  our  problems  to  solve. 
Elements  lapse;  from  their  wreck  is  descried 
Radium  stronger  than  tempest  and  tide. 

Out  of  the  grave  is  salvation's  rebirth ; 
Love  that  is  vital,  outliving  the  earth; 
Light,  heat  and  power  that  shall  pierce  through  the 

void ; 
Mind  that  shall  mount,  though  the  stars  be  destroyed. 

Failures  and  falls  are  our  ladder  through  space ; 
Death  the  dark  handicap,  life  the  long  race. 

Paris,  12'  20  '09. 


THE  LABORATORY 

A  BSCISSA  and  coordinate  on  paper  ruled  we  plot 
r\     and  chart ; 
The  atom's  soul  substantiate;  all  life's  partitions  tear 

apart. 
We  focus  down  our  microscope — a  hair's  breadth  the 

horizon  fills — 
In  fragile  test  tubes  blindly  grope  for  life  that  through 

the  ether  thrills. 

We  build  our  castles  in  the  sand  against  the  rising  of 

the  sea. 
Our  theories,  our  life  works,  stand  one  moment;  then 

they  cease  to  be. 
We  set  our  marks  and  some  remain,  to  show  the  limits 

of  its  flow. 
To-morrow  shall  some  better  brain  the  reasons  for  our 

error  know. 

Some  truths  essential  holding  yet,  the  digits  of  the 
problem  vast, 

The  letters  of  life's  alphabet,  we  stir  one  step  beyond 
the  past. 

The  deeper  sense  of  nature's  word,  the  scope  of  quanti 
ties  unknown, 

Of  formulas  unseen,  unheard;  we  miss,  we  may  not 
make  our  own. 

But  science  long  in  patience  toils,  content  to  ponder, 
sift  and  scan 


72  The  Laboratory 

The  power  whose  purpose  nothing  foils,  the  elemental 
rise  of  man ; 

The  growth  of  germs  in  chaos  born  that  solar  fires 
unseared  behold; 

Unchilled  shall  death  and  darkness  scorn,  and  inter 
planetary  cold. 

The  great  equation  clearer  frames;  such  modes  of 

matter  treated  thus 
By  older  or  by  later  names  make  the  same  minus  still 

or  plus. 
Such  forms  of  forces  focussed  so  the  same  resultant 

always  yield. 
So  tides  must  turn  and  rivers  flow  till  the  soul's  secrets 

stand  revealed. 

These  are  the  rinsings  of  the  glass,  the  droppings  from 

the  slow  retort. 
So  clouds  condense   and   nations    pass,  the  crystal 

forms,  our  brains  report. 
Untrained  assistants  pencils  seize,  fallen  and  dull  and 

broken; so 
They  calculate  infinities  and  add  their  cyphers  to  the 

row. 

The  bubble  breaks,  the  life  is  lost.     O  fool  and  slow 

of  heart  and  blind! 
That  life  that  all  earth's  aeons  cost  has  gone  its  larger 

life  to  find. 
The  rarer  essence,  redistilled,  sublimed  shall  mount  to 

larger  air, 
The  Master  Chemist  so  has  willed.     His  inner  room 

awaits  us  there. 

Paris,  12'  29  '08. 


THE  OBSERVATORY 

SNOWFLAKES  in  the  night,  you  think  them, 
poet? 

Planets  blossom  nightly  in  your  vision? 
At  your  highest  range  you  seem  to  see  them 
Serried  hosts  of  heaven  and  signal  beacons? 
I  have  learned  the  stars,  a  lifetime,  slowly; 
Scanned   them,   weighed   them,    charted   out     their 

courses ; 

Made  my  spectroscope  a  surgeon's  scalpel, 
Analyzed  their  thin  red  lines,  their  life  blood; 
Vivisected  them,  and  learned  their  secrets. 

"  Man,  I  tell  you,  they  're  eternal  digits 

On  the  great  big  blackboard  of  the  midnight, 

Where  the  Purpose  of  all  evolution 

Works  His  mighty  problems  out  forever. 

And  the  mind  of  man  informs  His  fingers, 

Mounts  to  meet  His  mind,  and  shares  His  life-work. 

"Planets  pass  and  agonize  for  ages, 
Die,  and  are  reborn  again  forever. 
So  the  soul  of  man  that  is  immortal 
Suffers  change,  survives,  and  out  of  chaos 
Learns  the  elemental  law  of  living 

73 


74  THe  Observatory- 

Discipline  through  struggle. — And  the  midnight 
Slowly  grows  more  clear.     Another  factor 
Simplifies ;  another  vista  opens. 
Lad,  to-night,  I  chart  a  moon  of  Neptune 
Found  by  me  an  hour  before  you  entered. 
Very  likely  we  shall  read  to-morrow 
That  some  German  saw  it  first.     So  be  it. 
Does  it  matter,  so  the  star  is  charted?" 

New  York,  2'  12'  1910. 


THE  CONSULTING  ROOM 

'HIS  is  our  last  confessional.     The  rest  have  we 

outgrown. 
And  here  our  brothers  who  have  sinned  to  judgment 

go  alone. 
In  shadow  and  in  silence  till  someone  coughs,  they 

wait, 
They  turn  the  tattered  pages  and  the  pictures  out  of 

date 
Of  magazines  scarce  six  months  old,  so  fast  we  grow 

to-day. 
Some  see  the  whole  world's  records  there.     Some 

shiver,  try  to  pray. 

The  black  door  opens.     One  appears,  the  judge  of 

laws  divine 
You  have  transgressed.     Your  fellow  sinners  answer 

to  his  sign. 
White  cheeks  grow  whiter.     So  you  wait.     Your  turn 

has  come  at  last 
And  now  the  trembling  present  tries  to  answer  for  the 

past. 
He  puts  his  question  with  his  lips.     His  wise  eyes  read 

you  through 
Before  you  speak.     His  strong  hands  hold  a  probe,  and 

your  heart  too. 

You  see  another  rise  in  turn.     You  stiffen,  try  to 

smile. 

A  woman  weeps  in  silence.     You  can  pity  her  awhile. 

75 


76  THe  Consulting'  Room 

A  child  sobs  loud.     You  softly  curse.     You  start. 

You  hear  a  groan, 
And  panic  comes.     You  pay  your  shot.     You  want 

to  be  alone. 
You  hail  a  cab,  steal  through  your  house;  and  now  at 

last  you  face 
Your  private  bar  of  judgment  in  the  old  familiar  place. 

Here  is  the  study.  Here  the  books  you  read,  believed 
in  youth, 

When  worlds  were  yours  to  win;  and  here  her  picture, 
God's  best  truth. 

Alive  or  dead  it  matters  not.  You  may  not  meet  her 
there. 

Here  you  shall  shrink,  shall  hate  her.  Could  she  for 
ever  care? 

Five  years?  Or  ten  at  most?  You  hear  your  sen 
tence.  Prisoned  here 

Scarce  sixty  days.     In  Arizona,  possibly  a  year. 

You 're  ordered  south.     Man  can't  you  see!  Whether 

you  live  or  die 
You  go  where  He  shall  send  you,  who  shall  hold  you, 

hand  and  eye. 
No  priest  can  damn  your  soul  to-day.     No  doctor's 

word  can  kill. 
You  have  your  fraction's  fighting  chance;  indomitable 

will. 
If  you  can  capture  life  again,  think  you  His  purpose 

fails 
Who  tests  you,  rests  you,  tests  you,  till  your  soul 

grown  strong  prevails? 

Paris,  12'  12  '08. 


THE  UPLIFT 


ES  the  world  is  worse  and  better  both,  to-day 
than  long  ago. 


Y 

Species  vary.     Vice  and  virtue  more  evolved  and  fitter 

grow 
For  the  one  primordial  purpose.    Some  revert  to  type, 

but  all 
Are  not  wasted,  unconsidered,  howsoever  slight  and 

small. 

Long  ago  men  told  the  story  of  the  lost  Atlantis  land 
Sunk  in  wrath  for  sin  transcendent,  since  they  could 

not  understand 
That  the  purpose  is  not  human,  that  its  will  is  not  as 

ours. 
Sin  and  death  like  pain  and  slumber  are  its  strong 

subservient  powers. 

Long  ago  the  lava  mountains  started  from  the  ocean's 

plain, 
Some  to  stand  in  island  summits,  some  to  sink  from 

sight  again. 
Aeons  passed.    And  coral  polyps  died  and  with  their 

bones  prepared 
Foothold  for  new  generations  that  their  labor  blindly 

shared. 

77 


78  The  Uplift 

Ages  passed.     They  ringed   the   mountain    till  the 

atoll  raised  its  reef. 
Sand  was  powdered.     Birds  brought   seeds.     From 

rotting  mosses  frond  and  leaf 
Sprang  to  life.     The  palm   trees'   rustle  down  the 

trade  wind's  courses  ran 
Waiting,  calling,  night  and  morning  till  a  home  was 

made  for  man. 

Law  unchanging  sank  an  island,  raised  another  in 
stantly. 

Earthquake  travail  tore  the  planet;  land  was  lifted 
from  the  sea. 

Polyps  toiled,  and  life  subaqueous  hurled  through 
chaos  blindly  eyed 

Light  and  sky  it  was  not  made  for,  saw  its  God's  new 
face  and  died. 

Ages  passed.     To-day  we  suffer,  strive,  and  die  in 

unsuccess ; 
Not  the  tenth  submerged  alone,  but  all  whose  flame  of 

life  grows  less. 
Nations  pass  and  form  a  foothold  for  the  race,  and  life 

shall  grow 
Slowly,  surely,  up  to  heaven  though  the  mountains  be 

brought  low. 

Nearer  light   we   form   this  nation.     Variation   has 

attained 
Newer    types    and   larger,    freer;    corals    bloodshot 

branched  and  brained. 


The  Uplift  79 

Comes  or  stays  the  storm,  the  earthquake;  rending, 

slaying,  surely  we 
Serve  the  race  that  rises  slowly  like  the  coral  from  the 

sea. 

Island  life  is  still  before  us.     Wider  vistas  wait  our 

eyes. 
Mountain-tops  of  light  whose  beacons  star  the  oceans 

of  the  skies. 

Paris,  12*  3  '08. 


THE  FRONTIERSMEN 

YOU  say  the  days  of  pioneers  are  past,  the  last 
frontier  is  lost,  is  wiped  away ; 
That  earth  is  fettered  fast  in  steel  at  last;  life  grows 

more  tame  and  cruel  every  day; 
That  Drake  and  Raleigh's  work  on  earth  is  done,  that 

Boone  and  Crockett's  like  no  more  we  breed; 
To  younger  planets  nearer  to  the  sun  they  have  gone 

on  on  trails  untrod  to  bleed. 
It  may  be  so  with  them.     It  is  not  so  with  us  their 

father's  sons  who  usher  in 

The  noonday  of  the  race.     The  fairest  hours  for  fight 
ing  men  and  pioneers  begin. 
Earth  grows  more  crowded  daily.     Greater  odds  are 

ours  to  count,  to  weigh,  to  charge,  to  rout, 
To  blaze  our  trails  through.     In  our  cities'  slums  our 

pathfinders  through  savagery  shall  scout, 
We  felled  the  forest  once  and  laid  it  low.     We  swept 

its  lurking  perils  from  our  path. 
We  loosed  the  floods.     To-day  till  trees  shall  grow  we 

must  rear  up  new  walls  against  their  wrath. 
We  must  drive  back  the  desert,  stem  the  seas.     Our 

engineers  go  pioneering  still. 
Our  surgeons  war  with   danger  and  disease.     They 

reinforce  the  long  beleaguered  will. 
80 


THe  Frontiersmen  81 

Life  has  come  near  its  limits  on  one  plane.     But  life 

that  never  pauses  learns  to  rise. 
Skyscraper  floors  our  footing  find  again.     Our  air 
ships  seek  the  frontiers  of  the  skies. 
We  must  dig  deeper.     In  our  darkest  mines,  in  depths 

below  the  tenth  submerged  we  hear 
Rumors  of  fire  damp.     In  these  close  confines  is  born 

the  master  courage  kin  to  fear. 
We  run  and  leap.     The  records  still  go  down.     We 

train;  the  body's  limits  still  extend. 
We  make  machines  more  subtle,  swift,  and  strong; 

our  powers  are  multiplied  without  an  end. 
We  roll  up  riches  till  our  money  kings  are  stronger 

than  the  emperors  of  old ; 
Nor  lands  nor  seas  their  frontiers,  stronger  things,  the 

whole  world's  hunger  and  its  lust  for  gold. 
Earth  's  our  arena.     So  our  bodies  strive.     Fit  to  sur 
vive  our  stronger  sons  are  born, 
And  fairer  daughters.     Love  is  still  alive.     His  lists 

are  wide;  his  barriers  night  and  morn. 
The  mind's   dominions   widen.     Furthest   stars   are 

scanned  and  weighed.     Our  eyes  adventure  there. 
The  chemist's  skill  unlocks  the  atom's  bars.     The 

lonely  scouts  of  science  sweep  the  air. 
They  go  beyond.     They  tread  the  trails  of  space. 

They  war  with  germs  without  us  and  within. 
They  shall  dissect  the  nerve,  the  brain,  the  soul.    They 

prove  disease  and  madness  one  with  sin. 
They  hypnotize  the  dull  subconscious  will,  extend  its 

borders,  and  record  its  laws. 
So  shall  the  master  healers  of  mankind  awake  the 

world  that  slumbers  to  the  cause 


82  The  Frontiersmen 

We  all  must  fight  for;  scout  and  pioneer,  painter  clear- 
eyed,  and  singer  sounding  true. 

Teacher  and  preacher;  till  the  last  frontier  our  spirits 
near,  and  heaven  is  ours  to  view. 

Paris,  12'  10  '09. 


THE  CHAIR 

YOU  shall  no  longer  stand  among  your  fellow  men. 
And  all  your  hands  from  life  have  wrung  lies 

shrunken  then 
To  that  lone  place  beside  its  board,  the  seat  of  horror 

where 
The  headman  is  your  host  and  lord.     They  strap  you 

to  the  chair, 
From  shrinking  flesh  the  wrappings  roll,   the  cold 

electrodes  lay, 
Like  serpents'  coils  that  crush  your  soul.     You  seem 

to  swoon  away. — 
This  is  our  Moloch's  altar  grim,  since  blood  for  blood 

still  cries, 
And  since  your  eyes  untaught  were  dim  you  are  our 

sacrifice, 

Our  hostage  that  we  dare  to  rack,  our  scapegoat  cast 
Into  the  pit  whence  none  comes  back.     Night's  wilder 
ness  at  last 
Shall  be  more  kind  to  you  than  us,  who  slowly  day  by 

day 

In  slums  and  sweatshops  murderous  that  profits  pay, 
Your  like  by  thousands  doom  to  death.     No  shape  of 

terror  sits 
To  still  the  shudders  of  your  breath  and  soothe  the 

soul  that  flits. 

Death  the  old  mother  in  her  arms  shall  clasp  you  till 
Your  spirit  rests  from  life's  alarms  and  slumbers  still. 

Paris,  iif  ii  '08. 
83 


V— THE  CITY 

MIDNIGHT— THE    WAITING-ROOM—JERSEY 
CITY 

THIS  is  the  vestibule.     A  continent 
Opens  outside  these  westward  swinging  doors. 
Ever  the  sound  of  footsteps  on  the  floors 
Quickens  and  swells.     Anon  the  wave  is  spent. 

Rank  after  rank  arisen  over  seas 
Along  the  foreshore  black  of  night  they  break. 
Rank  after  rank  of  soldiers  half  awake 
They  march  to  make  to-morrow's  destinies. 

Some  halt.     Some  pace  like  restless  sentinels. 
And  through  the  stormy  clangor  of  the  trains 
A  mother  lulls  her  babe  in  tender  strains. 
And  unawares  the  whole  world's  secret  tells. 

New  York,  7'  u  '03. 


THE  SKYSCRAPERS 

WHEN   earth  outgrew   her   limits  she   made   a 
mountain  range. 
She  drew  her  lines  of  cleavage.     She  suffered  stress 

and  change. 
She  raised  her  floods  of  lava  high  until  the  snow-peaks 

rose 

To  flash  the  signals  of  the  sky;  its  dawns  and  after 
glows. 

We  have  no  eyes  to  see  them,  who  crowd  the  market 

place. 
But  the  same  long  cosmic  pressure  is  strong  to  mould 

the  race. 
And  every  wave  and  every  train  that  rolls  o'er  land 

and  sea 
Evokes  a  folk  migration  to  a  land  of  liberty. 

There  was  neither  space  nor  grace  for  them  in  the 

cities  old  of  men, 
Their  lords  devoured  their  substance.     They  took  the 

trail  again. 
And  while  they  come  to  swell  the  crowd  that  struggles 

here  to  rise 
Above  their  Babel  hoarse  and  loud  these  towers  assail 

the  skies. 

8S 


86  THe  SKyscrapers 

They  are  the  spars  we  raise  to-day  of  mighty  scaffold 
ing. 

They  are  the  piers  unfinished  of  to-morrow  that  shall 
bring 

Order  at  last  from  chaos;  out  of  the  struggle  blind 

A  vision  of  the  purpose  that  our  building  has  designed. 

They  have  grown  with  the  rising  of  the  race,  like  the 

growth  of  trees  and  grain, 
That  stakes  its  claim  in  the  heart  of  space.     Sorrow 

and  toil  and  pain, 
Its  aspirations  high  and  prayers,  have  raised  them  here 

to  be 
The  foot  rules  of  its  will  that  dares  to  scale  infinity. 

Here  where  the  faults  are  focussed  the  lava  surges 

through. 

Out  of  the  soul's  corruption  the  spirit  builds  anew 
Beneath  the  lifted  ladders  where  the  workmen  slowly 

climb, 
The  broad  and  strong  foundations  of  a  city  more 

sublime. 

New  York,  9'  10  '09. 


THE  HIGHWAY 

LIFE  is  motion,  never  ending  pilgrimage  through 
paths  of  space. 
Here  the  feet  of  men  forgotten  trod  the  trail  that  leads 

the  race 

Past  these  lights  to  make  the  stars  its  milestones 
towards  its  dwelling-place. 

All  the  shadows  of  the  city  wake  to  watch  the  arc  lights 

blaze 
Where  Broadway  is  made  a  mirror  of  a  myriad  Milky 

Ways. 
Here  the  heart  of  all  the  heavens  beats  on  earth  while 

dawn  delays. 

Here  a  nebula  is  lucent.     Millions  of  its  atoms  swarm 
Where  the  nodule  of  a  nation  finds  its  evanescent 

form. 
Here  the  soul  that  is  eternal  lights  a  fire  its  flesh  to 

warm. 

Endless  atoms  in  their  orbits,  endless  germs  of  life,  and 
light 

Swirl  and  form  a  flaming  vortex  where  each  arc  light's 
beams  are  bright. 

Endless  eyes  that  wake  to  watch  them  out  of  inter 
stellar  night, 

8? 


The  Highway 

Gaze  unseeing ;  on  unending  errands  through  creation 

go. 
Men  that  chart  the  curves  of  ions,  life's  electrons  learn 

to  know, 
Blind  their  brothers  in  the  blackness  where  they  hurtle 

to  and  fro. 

Life  is  light  that  flames,  and  falling  flows  through 

space  in  fiery  waves. 
Stars  shine  here  that  died  when  first  the  Pharaohs 

piled  their  granite  graves. 
Here  the  life  of  ancient  Egypt  makes  to-day  its  lords 

and  slaves. 

Life  is  rhythm,  the  measured  marching  of  the  armies 
of  the  dead 

Down  the  trail  that  all  must  follow  through  the  dark 
ness  far  ahead. 

Here  they  made  it  hard,  enduring,  underneath  the 
ages'  tread. 

Here  the  crowding  millions  marching,  countermarch 
ing  faster  past 

Camps  and  cities,  plant  their  torches  on  a  frontier 
dark  and  vast; 

Build  Life's  road,  make  straight  His  way,  until  His 
triumph  comes  at  last. 

New  York,  7'  7  '09. 


HERALD  SQUARE 

YOU  who  have  felt  the  pressure  and  made  good, 
Who  cold  and  hungry  heard  the  presses  thunder; 
And  watched  with  eyes  that  little  understood, 
Sheet  after  sheet  show  white,  and  double  under; 
And  saw  beside  you  there  some  face  of  wood, 
Some  well-clad  idler's  stare  of  vacant  wonder; 

Clubman,  collegian,  child  or  priest  or  maid: 
Have  you  not  envied  them  their  careless  faces, 
Their  lives  untried,  untainted,  unafraid; 
Their  linen  white?     These  are  the  printless  spaces, 
The  margins  for  your  mark.     His  ink  may  fade, 
God's  sheet  moves  on.     You  would  not  change  your 
places. 

New  York,  6'  8  '06. 


THE  FACTORY  WHISTLES 

THE  night  is  rent  by  sudden  hoarse  alarms. 
The  dawn  has  barely  tinged  the  winter  skies 
Where  trails  of  smoke  from  grimy  chimneys  rise 
When  labor's  bugles  call  a  world  to  arms. 

Through  squalid  streets  the  army  takes  its  way, 
Childhood  and  age  are  sad  together  there, 
No  thrill  of  hope  the  stolid  faces  wear, 
As  bleak  before  them  breaks  the  barren  day. 

They  wage  a  hopeless  war  without  redress. 
Their  leaders  false,  they  fight  not  for  their  own. 
Delight  and  hours  of  ease  they  have  not  known. 
Still  to  the  strife  their  columns  onward  press. 

New  York,  5'  16  '99. 


THE  ARENA 

THEY  have  raised  the  seats  of  the  mighty  around 
the  City  Hall 

Where  Nero  sits  in  office  and  taxes  great  and  small. 
And  the  nation's  vast  arena  around  the  place  is  ranged, 
For  we  are  the  heirs  of  the  Romans.     In  little  are  we 
changed. 

Bread  and  the  circus  crying,  the  multitudes  begin 
To  fill  these  tiers  at  daybreak.     And  still  for  those 

that  win 
We  shout  and  we  shoulder  nearer,  and  still  turn  down 

our  thumbs 
And  doom  to  death  the  vanquished.     And  the  sound 

of  our  shouting  comes 
From  the  curb  where  we  crowd  the  closest  to  the  last 

skyscraper's  floor, 
And  the  millionaires'  high  altar  of  the  wealth  we  all 

adore. 

Day  after  day  when  sunset  has  glorified  the  west 
We  go  our  ways  unseeing,  and  we  win  us  little  rest. 
With  the  lusts  of  place  and  mastery  and  money  still 

we  strive: 
These  are  the  beasts  we  battle  with  to  save  our  souls 

alive. 

91 


92  The  Arena 

Year  after  year  the  springtime  awakens  earth  from 
sleep: 

And  the  world  grows  warm  with  summer  while  our 

hard  won  hoards  we  keep. 
And  our  hearts  grow  hard  and  colder.    And  the  flowers 

and  the  children's  smiles, 
And  the  dreams  that  we  dreamed  in  boyhood  grow 

dim.     And  the  weary  miles 
Of  life's  hard  highway  lengthen.     No  other  goal  we 

know 

But  the  gate  of  the  great  arena,  and  the  seat  in  the 
highest  row. 

Yet  are  there  visions  that  gleam  awhile  down  the 

vistas  gray  of  years, 
Strains  of  some  vagrant  music  that  summon  unshed 

tears, 

Faces  seen  on  a  ferry  like  the  loves  that  might  not  be, 
Wind  through  the  office  window  with  its  word  of  the 

open  sea. 

We  who  must  die  salute  Thee,  Lord  of  the  lives  of  all. 
We  are  Thy  gladiators,  Thy  purpose  holds  in  thrall. 
Nearer  we  march  each  morning  from  our  prison  to  the 

night 
When  we  hear  the  end  of  the  shouting  and  we  sink  in 

the  last  grim  fight. 
And  the  moon  looks  down  at  midnight  on  a  crater 

bare  and  cold; 
Hard  as  our  hearts  that  have  builded  it,  and  as  sad 

and  stern  and  old. 

Paris,  ii'  ii  '08. 


THE  CRUCIBLE 

HERE  by  the  borders  of  the  sea  and  land, 
The  fingers  of  an  everlasting  hand 
Have  traced  these  streets  like  furrows  in  the  sand. 

The  heat  and  burden  of  the  day  are  done. 

Out  of  the  west  the  embers  of  the  sun 

Are  raked;  unchecked  the  streams  of  pleasure  run. 

A  crucible  of  molten  life  is  spilled 

Upon  the  pavement;  every  mould  is  filled, 

And  souls  inert  to  sudden  heat  are  thrilled. 

The  arc  lights  glimmer  in  a  flaming  line, 
At  playhouse  portals  lurid  letters  shine, 
And  jewels  gleam  like  bubbles  born  of  wine, 

These  are  but  sparks  that  fleck  the  surface.     Slow, 
Deep  in  the  shadows,  in  the  slag  below, 
Hardens  and  cools  the  crust  of  want  and  woe. 

Doubt  and  distress  and  poverty  and  pain, 

Pear  and  despair  and  shame  that  sears  the  brain, 

All  fused  to  fever  heat,  grow  cold  again. 

In  the  cool  silence  of  His  hours  of  sleep 
He  shapes  our  prayers,  the  trysts  that  lovers  keep, 
Triumphs  and  trials,  and  tears  that  women  weep. 

93 


94  THe  Crucible 

Tempered  in  sorrow,  tested  not  for  long, 

Under  the  sledges  of  His  shapes  of  wrong' 

In  night's  black  smithy  shall  His  steel  grow  strong. 

This  day  a  million  mortals  marred,  shall  He 
Fashion  His  fragment  of  eternity 
Into  the  pattern  of  the  days  to  be. 

New  York,  9'  14  '07. 


THE  SWITCH  YARD 

OUT  of  the  glimmer  of  arc  lights  and  spaces  of 
shade, 

Far  on  the  frontier  the  city  has  won  from  the  dark, 
Rails  in  the  moonlight  in  ribbons  of  silver  are  laid, 
Eyes  that  are  watchful  the  loom  of  the  switch  yard 

shall  mark, 
Ears  that  are  keen  to  its  music  shall  hark. 

Red,  green  and  gold  are  the  signals  that  mark   the 

design. 
Black  is  the  ground  where  the  work  of  the  weaver  is 

spread. 

Bright  in  the  night  is  the  glittering  length  of  the  line, 
Swiftly  and  smoothly  and  strongly  the  shuttles  are 

sped 
Bringing  and  braiding  and  breaking  the  thread. 

Clicking  of  switches  and  resonant  rolling  of  wheels 
Mix  in  the  midnight  with  stifled  escape  of  the  steam. 
Down  the  long  siding  a  shadowed  shape  silently  steals, 
Sudden  it  checks;  and  the  gride  of  the  brakes  is  a 

scream, 
The  sound  of  a  rent  in  the  stuff  of  the  dream. 

95 


96  The  Switch  Yard 

Stars  in  their  courses  in  switch  yards  of  uttermost 
space, 

Thrills  in  the  ether  that  galaxies,  systems,  obey 

Meshes  immortal  of  motion  and  matter  to  trace; 

Feel  as  they  reel  and  they  race  down  Heaven's  per 
manent  way 

Past  the  tall  signal  tower  holding  the  void  in  survey. 

New  York,  2'  10  '04. 


THE  MORAINE 

LOOK  down  love  from  the  Bridge's  height 
And  see  the  buildings  piled  below, 
A  heap  of  pebbles  in  the  night 
Where  stars  like  fireflies  come  and  go. 

Here  by  the  border  of  the  sea 
Where  life  has  left  its  last  moraine, 
The  soul  of  man  eternally 
Resigns  its  pleasure  and  its  pain. 

The  glacier  glides  into  the  deep, 

An  endless  river  of  the  years, 

From  the  far  mountains  where  they  sleep 

Who  first  begot  our  hopes  and  fears. 

Cave-man,  Crusader,  scientist, 
They  pass  as  pass  the  centuries; 
And  teach  these  stones  to  still  persist 
To  tally  time's  infinities. 

What  does  it  all  mean?    Aeons  dear 
Have  left  Manhattan  here  to-day 
That  we  might  meet.     Our  home  is  here 
To  share  with  others  while  we  may. 

New  York,  8'  29  '09. 


97 


THE  CLOCK  IN  THE  AIR 

HIGH  on  Manhattan's  tallest  tower 
The  clock  keeps  watch  and  tells  the  hour. 
The  chimes  ring  out  their  reveille. 
The  city  wakes,  and  turns  to  see 
Its  campanile's  shaft  of  white 
Against  the  sunrise.     All  the  night 
It  points  its  finger  at  the  sky. 

All  day  the  multitudes  march  by; 
While  like  a  skylark's  song  there  falls 
To  waken  souls  in  prison  walls 
To  thoughts  of  meadows  far  away 
From  dusty  rooms  that  hide  the  day; 
Of  snowpeaks  and  the  open  sea; 
Of  all  the  city's  symphony 
This  note  supernal  and  supreme 
Teaching  the  toilers  how  to  dream. 

New  York,  8'  25  '09. 


VI— THE  INNER  LIFE 
THE  CITY  OF  DREAMS 

IN  the  distant  lands  of  dreaming 
Stands  a  city  on  a  hillside 
High  upborne  by  cloudy  bulwarks, 
All  by  endless  light  illumined. 
Happy  are  its  hopeless  people 
For  their  fears  are  all  forgotten. 
There  they  know  nor  noon  nor  daybreak, 
Sun  nor  shadow,  care  nor  joy. 
Every  night  I  climb  that  mountain, 
Seek  and  struggle  unavailing, 
Scale  the  steep,  assail  the  hillside, 
Baffled,  blinded,  faint  and  fail. 
Every  hour  there  flit  before  me 
Visions  of  unearthly  beauty, 
Gentle  glances,  smiles  undying, 
Tears  that  time  has  kissed  away. 
Sometimes  standing  in  the  gateway, 
Halting  on  the  very  threshold, 
Held  enthralled  by  strains  celestial, 
I  have  seemed  to  see  her  face; 
Dreamed  I  kissed  her  garment's  hem, 
Deemed  she  drifted  ever  nearer; 
Then  the  gates  have  crashed  together 
On  a  waking  world  of  pain. 

New  York,  4'  21  '03. 


99 


THE  DREAM 

LEST  we  forget  the  mountain  peaks  to-day, 
The  fields  of  freedom  where  the  children  play, 
The  fragrance  of  the  garden  dim  with  dawn, 
The  years  of  youth  that  down  to  dust  have  gone; 
Here  in  the  noonday's  burden  and  its  heat, 
The  glare,  the  roar,  the  riot  of  the  street; 
Cloudlike  the  dream  shall  come,  and  in  its  shade 
Sad  lips  shall  smile,  faint  hearts  grow  unafraid, 
Dull  eyes  shall  brighten.     There  shall  we  forget 
Failures  and  frauds  and  custom's  ceaseless  threat, 
The  barren  triumphs  and  the  tainted  gold, 
Safety  and  honor  crumbling  in  our  hold. 
We  will  remember  loveliness  and  peace, 
Beauty  and  joy  that  were  not  born  to  cease, 
Kisses  of  children  pure  as  crystal  springs, 
Voice  of  the  spirit  where  a  skylark  sings, 
Sunset  and  snow,  and  forest,  field  and  sea; 
Watchfires  of  stars  that  guard  eternity; 
Heaven  here  on  earth,  ours  in  one  woman's  eyes. 
While  these  endure  the  dream  that  never  dies 
Under  our  ashes  stirs  and  flames  anew. 
All  these,  our  allies,  ranged  in  long  review 
While  with  the  crowd  we  struggled,  passed  unseen. 
We  have  been  blind,  nor  is  our  honor  clean; 

100 


THe  Dream 


JOI 


We  have  known  weakness,  shame,  unfaith  and  sin. 
Much  have  we  wasted.     Had  we  wiser  been 
We  should  have  less  to  win  still ;  less  to  share. 
Beyond  the  dream  our  own  are  waiting  there. 

Sydney,  2'  28  '09. 


THE  IDOL 

THOUGH  you  find  her  feet  but  clay, 
Though  they  trample  on  your  heart, 
Kiss  nor  spurn  them  yet,  but  pray 
They  may  learn  to  play  their  part, 
Strive  to  find  for  them  the  way. 

Take  your  idol,  raise  her  high. 
Blend  her  with  your  best  ideal, 
Let  her  forehead  feel  the  sky 
Though  the  rest  of  her  be  real. 
Kneel  and  toil  and  testify. 

This  is  she  that  might  have  been, 
Such  am  I  and  by  her  grace, 
Scourged  by  failure,  folly,  sin  ; 
In  the  promise  of  her  face 
Sure  that  better  years  begin. 

Guard  her  as  your  polestar  there, 

Sweet  and  true  and  half  a  child, 

Unfulfilled,  forever  fair, 

Till  your  pain  is  reconciled 

With  the  strength  that  marks  despair. 

102 


The   Idol  103 


Hold  her  high  and  climb  to  her, 
Till  your  worship  wins  its  own; 
Though  no  pulse  of  passion  stir, 
Tears  and  kisses  too,  unknown ; 
Till  her  eyes  your  crown  confer. 


5.  5.  Medic,  i*  20  '09. 


FREEDOM 

MEN  are  born  free  and  equal?     These  are  lies, 
We  were  born  slaves  to  free  ourselves  and  rise. 
Slaves  to  the  passions  of  ten  thousand  years, 
The  lusts  that  died;  the  bitter,  barren  tears. 
We  were  born  warriors.     In  each  human  skin 
Battle  the  germs  of  sickness,  shame  and  sin, 
Of  death  and  life;  of  error  and  of  truth, 
And  none  shall  hold  his  citadel  of  youth, 
Inviolate  at  all  hours  day  and  night. 
The  foe  shall  enter  and  the  soul  shall  fight — 
Surprised,  outnumbered,  beaten  to  the  ground, 
By  its  best  friends  betrayed;  and  blinded,  bound, 
Bleeding  and  dying:  or  resurgent,  strong, 
Indomitable,  grim,  besieged  by  wrong, 
Hungered,  athirst,  unsleeping  and  alone; 
Relieved  at  last  by  forces  not  its  own. 
Freedom  is  warfare.     There  your  brother  stands, 
Smiles  till  he  takes  his  life  with  his  own  hands, 
You  were  too  blind,  too  shrewd,  too  weak;  afraid, 
His  soul's  frontiers  to  force,  invade  and  aid — 
The  arch-foe's  stolen  city  to  retake. 
Freedom  is  wisdom  loved  for  wisdom's  sake. 
Efficiency,  the  science  hardly  won, 
By  struggling  ages,  work  well  planned,  well  done, 

104 


Freedom  ! 

Freedom  is  love  that  keeps  its  altar  clean, 
City  and  home  and  nation;  fire  unseen 
Or  flaming  beacon,  for  one  purpose  trained. 
Freedom  is  service;  strongest  when  constrained. 
Ranged  with  its  ranks  alone  your  souls  shall  be 
Heirs  of  the  freedom  of  the  hills  and  sea. 

Paris,  12'  21  '08 


THE  COUNTERSIGN 

THERE  is  one  talent  it  is  death  to  hide, 
God's  self  can  pardon  not,  the  suicide 
Of  flesh  and  soul  that  thwarts  His  Holy  Ghost. 
Self -sentenced  dies  the  sentry  at  his  post 
Who  sleeps  and  sinks  beside  the  dark  frontier 
Of  truth  and  error.     Midnight's  mists  of  fear 
Assail  thy  spirit.     Hardly  shalt  thou  pace 
The  weary  rounds  of  loneliness,  and  face 
The  shapes  that  stalk  thee.     Pluck  thy  burning  brand 
From  truth's  camp-fire.    The  brute  that  cannot  stand 
Slinks  back  and  bides  his  time.     And  so  must  thou. 

But  if  in  man's  own  shape  it  fronts  thee;  now 

Summon  thy  strength's  reserves,  thy  challenge  cry, 

"Stand  thou  and  speak,  or  one  of  us  shall  die." 

Hast  thou  well  loved  her,  has  the  crisis  come? 

Her  soul  and  thine  shall  die  if  both  be  dumb. 

Is  thy  friend  strong  and  blind?   Then  thou  must  pray, 

Wrestle  and  win,  or  trampled  into  clay 

Give  up  thy  breath  in  honor.     Even  so 

Jacob  with  angels  strove;  and  from  the  glow 

Of  Nero's  gardens,  martyr  torches  flamed 

To  light  our  way.     God's  purpose  is  not  shamed, 

Thwarted  nor  darkened  by  our  sins  to-day. 

106 


THe  Countersign  107 

We  all,  our  nation's  destinies  may  sway. 
We  who  have  grace  to  lead  our  fellow-men, 
Guard  or  destroy;  the  gift  of  tongue  or  pen, 
Power  or  wealth,  or  science;  insight,  art; 
Panders  or  prophets,  all  must  stand  apart : 
Out  of  our  hour  of  darkness  call,  or  fall, 
Are  you  for  truth  or  treason  to  us  all? 

Paris,   n'  21    '08. 


THE  REAL  THING 

YES,   you  're   down,   you  're   dazed,  you  're  sore. 
But  you  '11  get  up  again. 
Take  the  count  and  watch  his  arm  if  you  've  got  head 

enough. 

If  the  girl 's  gone  and  she  never  will  come  back,  alive, 
There  're  as  good  as  she  on  earth  still.  On  my  word 

there  are. 
If  it 's  money,  you  '11  make  more.     The  world  is  full 

of  it, 

Full  of  people  simply  waiting  to  give  up  to  you. 
If  it 's  drink,  there  's  time  to  sidestep  till  the  final 

round, 
If  you  're  sick  and  sad,  the  better  times  are  bound  to 

come. 

If  you  're  hungry,  there  are  others  that  are  hungrier, 
If  you  've  lost  a  friend  forever  you  '11  get  next  to  him 
Just  by  making  other  friends  like  him  and  keeping 

them, 

If  it  's  death  itself  you  're  facing,  so  's  the  world  as  well. 
If  he  can't  be  countered  longer,  every  one  of  us 
Soon  or  late  must  go  against  the  big  black  heavy 
weight. 
He  's  your  sparring  partner  merely.     If  he  knocks 

you  out 

108 


The    Real  Thing  109 

It 's  because  your  trainer  simply  thinks  you  need  a 
rest. 

So  it  's  up  to  you  to  show  him  you  're  no  quitter  yet. 

Other  rings  in  heaven  or  hell  there  are  you  're 
scheduled  for 

Where  you  Ve  got  to  go  against  the  real  thing,  some 
time,  soon  or  late. 

Men  like  you  have  landed  knockouts  in  defeat's  own 
face. 

Get  one  blow  in  first.  Last  one  round  more,  for  God's 
sake,  man. 

Paris,  12'  21  '08. 


IGDRASIL 

EXISTENCE  is  a  tree,"  the  Norsemen  said. 
Silent  it  grows  through  all  eternity, 
Each  branch  a  nation,  every  leaf  a  life. 
Death  is  the  wind  that  comes  and  shakes  the  leaves. 
We  know  not  whence  it  comes  nor  where  it  goes, 
Nor  what  it  is,  nor  why  at  times  it  breathes 
So  soft  the  withered  leaves  alone  must  fall; 
Nor  why,  again,  its  blasts  shake  all  the  tree, 
And  boughs  are  reft  away,  and  leaves  still  green 
Are  whirled  through  farthest  space.     Nor  can  we  tell 
How  buds  this  life  of  ours,  and  how  it  fades, 
What  is  the  nourishment  its  roots  receive, 
And  what  the  blasting  sources  of  decay. 
We  only  know  we  are,  and  then  are  not; 
While,  soft  or  fierce,  forever  blows  the  wind; 
And  silent  grows  the  tree,  eternally. 

Hartford,  10'  3  '93. 


no 


LOVE  LETTERS  OF  AN  EVOLUTIONIST  XI 

LOVE,  let  me  hold  you  close  while  light  is  ours. 
Not  in  the  night's  mad  rapture  are  we  near. 
Siegfried  the  strong  in  song  has  made  it  clear 
A  sword  most  sharp  divides  the  marriage  bed. 
We  may  not  forge  in  passion's  furnace  red 
Bonds  that  shall  hold  while  cold  the  spirit  cowers. 

Within  the  mirrors  twin  your  eyes  uplift 
I  see  my  own  true  image  near  and  plain. 
At  noon's  high  tide  a  moment  we  remain, 
Then  shadows  lengthen  into  weary  years. 
Flesh  knit  to  flesh  with  kisses  and  with  tears 
Death  shall  divide,  and  time  make  wide  the  rift. 

How  shall  we  hold  together,  heart  of  gold? 
Death  is  a  sword  of  steel  most  bitter  keen. 
How  shall  we  fare  through  farthest  stars  unseen 
Beyond  the  black  abysm  of  space  to  meet? 
Love,  shall  the  lips  whose  touch  is  piercing  sweet 
Whisper  one  word  when  life  in  us  lies  cold? 

Shall  instinct  blind  that  brings  the  birds  again 
Back  from  the  winter  to  last  summer's  nest 
Be  strong  to  bid  our  love  survive  the  test? 
Have  we  not  lost  the  scent  of  forest  things? 
Hath  hope  unbent  the  spirit's  slackened  wings? 
Shall  faith  in  longing  spent  forget  forever  pain? 

in 


ii2     Love   Letters  of  an   Evolutionist  XI 

How  shall  we  know  that  all  is  not  a  lie? 
More  dear  than  life  itself  I  hold  you,  dear. 
Here  in  this  word  is  heard  a  word  of  cheer, 
Since  at  your  feet  my  life  I  'd  gladly  lay 
God  must  be  good  to  give  and  take  away, 
And  pay  again  the  price  beyond  the  sky. 

New  York,  8'  14  '04. 


THE  PORTRAIT 

TO  paint  a  portrait  of  her  that  would  live 
Longer  than  Raphael's  fairest  Mother  of  God, 
This  is  the  task  that  I  have  set  myself. 
And  I  shall  fail.     For  I  should  have  to  blend 
All  of  the  flowers  that  make  this  old  world  fair, 
All  of  the  dawns  and  sunsets  of  the  ages, 
To  fix  the  changing'  color  of  her  face. 
And  I  should  want  the  wind  that  sways  the  grain 
To  show  the  way  she  comes  to  welcome  me; 
And  all  the  lights  and  shadows  of  the  ocean 
In  storm  and  sunshine>  to  suggest  her  eyes. 
As  for  the  soul  that  wakes  and  slumbers  there, 
That  wavers  round  her  lips  like  living  music, 
Near  and  elusive,  I  should  have  to  borrow 
The  dreams  of  poets,  and  the  hearts  of  heroes, 
That  leap  to  war  with  wrong  instinctively; 
All  of  the  joys  and  sorrows  of  the  city 
Wherein  she  lives  and  learns  and  lifts  a  torch 
To  honor  and  her  pilgrims.     I  should  need 
The  tenderness  of  lovers  and  of  mothers, 
The  insight  half  divine  that  heals  the  sick, 
Redeems  the  fallen,  makes  the  feeble  strong, 
And  every  one  more  glad,  that  looks  on  her, 
Night's  mystery  and  noon's  unsullied  light, 
To  make  her  real  to  eyes  that  may  not  see. 
s  113 


H4  The  Portrait 

She  is  more  true  and  vital  than  myself, 
And  though  no  canvas  ever  can  contain  her 
In  every  man's  hard  heart  she  lives  immortal, 
Ideal,  like  Galatea  masked  in  stone; 
Till  time  the  sculptor  sets  her  free  forever. 

New  York,  10'  14  '09. 


DREAM  CHILDREN 

BY  winter  firesides  have  they  most  been  missing, 
O  maiden  mother  with  the  withered  breast? 
Neath  summer  starlight  have  you  felt  their  kissing 
Soft  in  the  shadow  by  the  breeze  caressed? 
Then  have  they  grown  to  crown  each  gracious  shoulder, 
Wings  of  the  spirit  that  a  seraph  seems, 
Arms  of  the  mother  love  that  grows  not  older, 
Strength  of  the  weak  that  bears  the  babes  of  dreams? 

Have  you  been  wise,  to  see  the  sordid  city 

Cruel  and  vast  and  sick  with  suffering; 

Out  of  the  ardent  passion  of  your  pity 

Learning  the  light  to  languid  eyes  to  bring? 

Have  you  been  strong  to  cast  your  arms  around  them, 

Harlqt  and  thief  and  widow  sore  bereft; 

Making  each  child  your  own  where'er  you  found  them, 

Stilling  the  throb  of  pain  while  life  was  left? 

Sister  of  sin  and  shame  and  all  who  sorrow, 
Prophet  and  priest  and  fighting  man  forspent; 
We  who  must  toil  to-day  to  build  to-morrow 
Out  of  the  ruins  of  our  discontent ; 
We  who  must  strive  to  stir  the  love  whose  leaven 
Quickens  alone  the  life  naught  else  redeems; 
This  is  our  surest  proof  and  pledge  of  heaven, 
Children  whose  smiles  we  only  see  in  dreams. 

Paris,  4'  22  '08. 


VII— THE  WEST 
THE  GUN 

I  AM  the  Anglo-Saxon's  second  tongue. 
I  was  the  ultimate  word  of  your  nation  young, 
When  Standish  marched  and  his  cannon  stood 
On  the  meeting-house  roof  to  rake  the  wood, 
And  the  Ironside  grandsires  slew,  their  prayers  among. 

I  was  the  frontier's  call  and  countersign, 
When  the  pioneers  deployed  their  fighting  line, 
And  the  forest  fell  before  their  stern  assault; 
And  the  Union  rose  and  marched  nor  stayed  to  halt, 
And  life  was  brave  and  free,  and  death  divine. 

I  was  the  soul  that  woke  at  Lexington, 
That  spoke  at  Yorktown  till  the  work  was  done, 
That  echoed  back  the  roar  of  Waterloo, 
That  Wellington's  most  seasoned  soldiers  slew 
And  saw  the  Mississippi  crimson  run. 

I  was  the  voice  that  swelled  at  Sumter's  fall 
Northward  and  Eastward,  Westward,  rousing  all; 
Until  a  million  men  in  battle  stood; 
And  Freedom's  charter  by  their  blood  made  good, 
Struck  off  the  shackles  from  the  alien  thrall. 

116 


THe   G\in  117 

I  was  the  herald  of  the  Golden  West. 

I  woke  the  voiceless  echoes,  fired  the  quest. 

I  spoke  for  Sitting  Bull,  Geronimo. 

From  lava  beds  to  peaks  of  crimsoned  snow 

I  wrote  the  Red  Man's  last  red  fighting  test. 

I  am  the  court  supreme  of  last  appeal, 

When   bombshells  burst  o'er   frontiers  carved  with 

steel, 

Whether  from  Prussia,  Africa,  Japan; 
If  ye  shall  breed  no  more  your  fighting  man, 
Chastened  and  suppliant,  sentenced  ye  shall  kneel. 

Honolulu,  4'  27  '09. 


THE  FLOODS 

AGES  on  countless  ages  the  forest  slowly  grew, 
And  we  came  in  clouds  from  the  ocean,  and 

the  raindrops  filtered  through 
The  living  screen  of  the  branches  as  they  sifted  light 

and  shade. 

And  the  winds  of  heaven  whispered  through  the  twi 
light  we  had  made. 

And  the  deer  through  the  glades  went  gliding  below; 

and  high  above 
The  birds  in  their  nesting  echoed  the  Indian's  songs 

of  love, 
And  we  ran  in  a  limpid  river  and  we  spread  in  the 

placid  lake, 
Where  canoes  that  steal  like  shadows  scarcely  a  ripple 

make. 

And  you  came  and  you  brought  your  discords  to  the 
forest's  symphony. 

And  we  heard  the  sound  of  the  axes  and  the  crash  of 
the  falling  tree, 

And  the  strident  gride  of  the  saw -mill,  and  the  rail 
road's  whistle  shrill, 

And  the  roar  of  the  burning  forest  where  once  the 
world  was  still. 

118 


The  Floods  119 

Since  you  have  spoiled  our  handiwork  and  idle  strength 

set  free, 
And  the  waters  rise  in  the  springtime  as  the  sap  swells 

in  the  tree; 
You  shall  fly  from  our  futile  fury  and  our  havoc  wide 

repair. 
We  are  the  strength  of  the  nation's  youth  your  haste 

has  wasted  there. 

In  the  noonday's  heat  and  burden  the  earth  is  rent 

and  scarred, 
Gutted  and  gashed  with  guljies  like  the  lives  your 

hands  have  marred. 
And  the  sandy  barrens  widen.     In  a  world  devoid  of 

shade 
Fire  and  famine  follow  us  through  the  desert  you  have 

made. 

You  have  taken  peace  from  the  people;  beauty  and 

joy  and  ease. 
You  have  built  them  huts  of  timber  where  once  were 

growing  trees. 
Though  we  turn  ten  thousand  spindles  where  the 

river  dwindles  lean, 
Can  we  weave  a  cloak  for  your  nakedness  like  the 

forest's  robe  of  green? 

Vainly  you  darken  your  city's  streets,  and  steel  on 

stone-work  pile, 
While  you  bare  the  flanks  of  the  mountains  and  our 

sources  pure  defile. 
You  have  wounded  the  world  and  wasted  it.     And 

your  sons  shall  bear  the  scars, 


120 


THe  Floods 


And  shall  starve  where  the  arclights  glitter  and  their 
dazzle  hides  the  stars. 

You  must  sow  the  seeds  of  the  spirit.      You  must 

plant  the  trees  again 
For  the  sake  of   your  children's  children  and  the 

pleasant  sound  of  rain. 

Paris,  ii1  12  '08. 


GRAIN 

LIGHT  was  reft    from   darkness,    land    and  sea 
appeared. 

One  unchanging  purpose  wide  the  field  surveyed.   m 
Strange  chaotic  forms  of  life  lusted,  slew  and  feared, 
Hungered,  died  and  fertilized  the  soil  that  love  had 
made. 

Glaciers  plowed  the  prairies,  rivers  rose  and  ran. 
Earth  was  robed  in  verdure.     Slowly  grew  the  grain 
Toward  to-day's  perfection.     And  so  the  mind  of 

man 
Learned  to  plow  and  sow  and  reap  and  garner  home 

again. 

Here  the  soil  primeval  lay  till  yesterday, 

Virgin,  fair,  and  spared  a  new-born  nation's  need  to 

feed, 
Here  the  happy  hunting  grounds  where  men  might 

love  and  slay 
Nursed  the  childhood  of  the  race  nor  knew  the  taint 

of  greed. 

Flowers  filled  the  plains  with  light.     Dusky  bison 

hordes 

121 


122  Grain 

On  their  last  migration  passed.     Red  men,  pioneers 
Into  silence  followed  them.     And  so  this  earth  affords 
Food  for  famished  millions  and  a  storehouse  for  the 
years: 

Counters  for  your  corners,  money  for  your  lust, 
Rations  for  the  regiments  of  tyranny  and  pain. 
Fertile,  fair  and  undefiled  for  righteous  and  unjust 
Grows  the  nation's  sacrament  of  sunshine  turned  to 
grain. 

Reapers  shear  the  Golden  Fleece.     Threshers  winnow 

fine. 
Mills  shall  grind  it  into  dust,  and  men  the  seed  shall 

sow. 

Death  and  resurrection  and  service,  all  divine, 
From  its  daily  bread  of  toil  the  world  shall  grow  to 

know. 

Leagues  of  flame  aspiring,  waves  of  living  light, 
Sway  across  the  plains.     The  winds  like  seraphs  stoop 

again, 

Hold  their  breath  adoring  before  the  wondrous  sight, 
Heaven's  golden  floor  on  earth,  a  glory  wrought  of 

grain. 

Paris,  ii'  19  '09. 


THE  CANYON 

GOD  opened  here  His  folded  book 
That  men  might  read.    He  scored  each  wall 
Where  snows  of  myriad  winters  fall 
And  wasting,  waste  the  stubborn  rock 
Whose  beetling  fringes  overlook 
The  sullen  torrent's  surge  and  shock. 

Each  noon  He  bids  His  sun  bow  down 

To  utter  deeps  where  far  below 

The  fallen  waters  restless  flow. 

Each  night  His  stars  are  mirrored  there. 

And  where  His  crags  unbending  frown 

He  sets  His  flowers  to  make  them  fair. 

Royal  Gorge,  i'  16  '04. 


123 


THE  SNOW  PEAKS 

THE  hills  are  bowed  about  their  feet, 
The  plains  lie  prone  and  far  below. 
They  lift  their  hands  their  Lord  to  greet 
In  sacerdotal  robes  of  snow. 

Shades  unassoiled  their  matins  throng 
When  sunrise  lights  its  candles  high, 
And  cloudy  incense  trails  along 
The  eastern  altar  of  the  sky. 

The  roll  of  thunder's  organ  tone 
Their  silences  of  noon  has  stirred. 
To  their  enduring  hearts  of  stone 
The  storm  winds  preach  a  holy  word. 

Strict  vigil  through  the  dark  they  keep. 
Through  night's  tall  temple  windows  they 
While  all  the  world  is  wrapped  in  sleep 
The  stars  of  heaven  behold  and  pray. 

New  York,  f  2  '99. 


124 


THE  ROOSEVELT  DAM 

WE  set  our  symbol  at  our  valley's  gates 
Where  the  floods  rushed  together.     Strong  it 

stands 

To  bar  their  way.     The  alien  from  all  lands 
Shall  come  to  marvel  where  this  bulwark  waits : 

Shall  see  the  silent  majesty  of  law, 
The  bridge  that  binds  the  high  heroic  past 
To  that  more  lofty  future,  that  at  last 
Shall  test  our  building,  every  fault  and  flaw. 

Already  in  its  shadow  slowly  rise 
Waters  once  wasted  that  at  last  shall  flow 
To  bring  the  mountains  near  and  melting  snow 
To  desert  ranches  drear  and  rainless  skies. 

And  you  whose  purpose  would  the  clouds  compel, 
For  whom  all  rivers  run,  all  oceans  bear 
More  to  your  mountain;  master-millionaire 
Shall  you  not  learn  to  serve  and  so  do  well? 

Paris,  II*  12  '08. 


125 


THE  STAMPS 

THE  crash  of  our  anvil  chorus  reechoes  day  by 
day, 
A  d  the  rocks  go  down  before  us  and  the  mountains 

melt  away. 
We  are  keeping  time,  we  are  marking  step  till  the 

army  onward  tramps. 

And  the  sway  and  the  surge  of  labor's  hosts  is  the  war- 
song  of  the  stamps. 

They  have  prisoned  powers  of  thunder  to  swing  our 

hammer  heads ; 
And  the  earth    for  an  anvil  under  have  set,  and  the 

watersheds 
Where  the  rocks  are  piled,  and  the  foot-hills  heaped, 

and  the  ranges  upward  roll 
In  stark  Titanic  stonework  of  the  watch  towers  of  the 

soul. 

And  our  iron  roll  unending  rings   long  across   the 

night. 
With  a  roar  and  a  sound  of  rending  we  drum  you  to 

the  fight, 
And  the  new  recruits  in  double  shifts  come  hurrying 

to  our  call 
To  the  fort  of  life  beleaguered  by  the  shades  that  wait 

for  all. 

126 


THe  Stamps  127 

And  we  fall  and  flail  the  strong  and  true  from  the  dross 

that  drifts  away. 
This  is  the  task  we  share  with  you  to  shake  the  soul 

from  clay. 
And  our  ammunition  trains  roll  out.     And  the  cities' 

scattered  camps 
Are  reinforced,  and  each  weak  redoubt,  by  the  powder 

from  the  stamps. 

Paris,  ii'  16  '08. 


THE  DESERT 

HERE  long  ago  beneath  a  leaden  sky 
Titans  and  devils  strove  in  leaguer  vast. 
On  mesas  lone  their  scarped  entrenchments  lie 
In  broken  ranks  that  witness  to  the  past. 
And  the  low  foot-hills  rise  in  shallow  waves 
To  make  a  multitude  of  giants'  graves. 

Here  heaven's  siege  guns  thunder  sullen  still. 
The  baffled  lightnings  stab  the  barren  sand. 
Here  lurks  the  rattlesnake  and  strikes  to  kill, 
The  cactus  sentinels  an  arid  land. 
Like  tears  that  women  shed  in  pain  in  vain, 
There  falls  the  broken  promise  of  the  rain. 

And  here  twin  threads  of  steel  have  traced  the  trail 

That  man  must  follow  on  to  victory. 

Here  must  he  toil  however  nature  fail; 

The  mountains'  secret  water  springs  set  free, 

Till  children  smile  where'er  a  garden  grows 

To  see  the  desert  blossom  like  the  rose. 

New  York,  10'  30  '03. 


128 


THE  FLUME 

THEY  killed  five  hundred  years  of  life, 
Butchered  the  red  wood  into  planks. 
And  higher  still  they  raised  their  knife 
And  scarred  the  mountain's  hoary  flanks, 
Smothered  a  waterfall  in  gloom, 
And  stilled  its  music  in  the  flume. 

And  still  the  water  limpid  flows 
Unresting,  rapid  all  the  way; 
And  brings  the  chill  of  melted  snows 
To  cool  the  plains  that  parch  to-day; 
And  from  the  hillside's  citadel 
Sends  succor  to  a  city's  hell. 

And  light  flames  forth  where  light  was  not. 
And  power  transmitted,  life  transfused 
In  surgeon's  cauteries  is  hot. 
And  nature's  vital  force  is  used 
To  sear  and  scar  and  sterilize 
The  sickness  that  unsuccored  dies. 

The  water  murmurs  through  the  flume 
Since  we  have  stabbed  the  mountain's  veins 
And  made  our  mother's  strength  assume 
The  burden  of  our  sins  and  pains. 
But  the  great  Surgeon  surely  knows 
Why  love  that  falls  unfailing  flows. 

Paris,  uf  19  '08. 


THE  REDMAN 

OUT  of  the  dark  and  bloody  soil 
That  colored  red  his  human  clay, 
Out  of  Kentucky's  wild  turmoil 
He  learned  to  trail  and  slay. 

We  felled  the  forest  o'er  his  head, 
We  spoiled  his  hunting,  stole  his  home, 
O'er  prairies  bare,  untenanted 
We  drove  him  forth  to  roam. 

He  is  our  brother  Ishmael. 
As  Israel  dealt  with  Hagar's  son, 
Outcast,  at  war  with  all  to  dwell, 
So  have  our  soldiers  done. 

Out  of  the  mountain's  last  retreat 
Where  rattlesnakes  on  lava  lurk, 
Out  of  the  desert's  hoarded  heat 
Where  gold  calls  man  to  work ; 

We  forced  him  fighting  to  the  last. 
We  ringed  him  round  from  sea  to  sea, 
A  smear  of  red  upon  our  past, 
To-day,  and  time  to  be. 
130 


THe  Redman  131 

For  the  same  harsh  environment 
That  made  him  subtle,  restless,  grim, 
Unsparing  to  the  innocent, 
Has  fashioned  us  like  him. 

So  we  have  lost  our  last  frontier, 
Our  epic  red  from  coast  to  coast. 
And  merciless,  who  know  no  fear, 
The  victors  suffer  most. 

Paris,  12'  28  '08. 


VIII— POLEMICS 
THE  EXPATRIATES 

YOU  call  us  all  expatriates  because  we  stay  away, 
And  are  n't  convinced  that  work  per  se's  more 

sane  always  than  play. 
You  get  the  habit,  use  your  minds  for  muscles,  motors, 

scales, 
To  weigh  the  money  value  of  to-day  that  stands  or 

fails. 
Earth  shuts  you  up  in  motor  cells  of  its  big  brain  of 

steel. 
Here  we  've  perspective,  atmosphere.     We  find  the 

time  to  feel, 

To  criticise,  interpret  art's  historic  loveliness, 
We  all  are  heirs  to.     Are  you  sure  we  love  our  country 

less? 
Not  more?     We  're  frank  to-day;  we  are  deserters 

from  the  cause 
Of  truth  and  freedom  there  at  home;  enforcement  of 

just  laws, 
Impartial,  wise,  efficient;  like  you  whose  breathless 

haste 
Has  glutted  you  with  power  you  waste  like  wealth 

your  women  waste. 
Barbarians  all,  like  dynamos,  like  soulless  summer 

flies. 

132 


THe   Expatriates  133 

They  come  abroad  and  shame  us  in    the  whole  of 

Europe's  eyes. 
Your  work  at  home  defrauds  our  sons,  together  with 

your  own, 
And  men  shall  rise  against  you.     And  when  that  hour 

is  known 
And  earth's  last  revolution  breaks  the  trusts  your 

lusts  abuse 
We  will  come  home  and  fight  you  or  with  you  as  you 

choose. 
We  hate  your  noise,  your  blatant  boasts,  your  swagger, 

glitter,  greed. 
Your  yellow  journal's  creed  we  read:  "At  any  cost 

succeed." 
We  love  our  country  most  because  we  see  her  faults 

and  yours, 
And  underneath  the  purpose  strong  that  freedom  still 

insures; 
That  crowds  earth's  bargain  counters  and  the  sales 

you  advertise, 
Drummers  of  loud  prosperity  and  watered  stock  and 

lies. 

America  's  not  there  nor  here,  it 's  everywhere  to-day, 
It  wakes  the  world,  its  last  frontier  finds  savagery  at 

bay, 

In  darkest  Russia,  Africa,  Manhattan  darker  yet, 
Where  fouler  tyranny  than  Rome's  you  tax  or  else 

forget. 

America  's  a  state  of  mind,  a  mission  of  the  soul. 
Show  us  the  way  to  win  it.     We  '11  race  you  to  our 

goal. 

Paris,  12'  3  '08. 


MONEY 

WHAT  will  you  do  with  it?     What  will  it  do, 
What  has  it  done,  is  it  doing  with  you? 
Nations  have  fought  and  died;  sages  have  thought, 
Heaped  up  your  heritage.     Ages  have  wrought 
Strength  for  your  children,  their  duty  and  dower, 
Wealth,  obligation  and  peril  and  power. 
Waste  it,  you  waste  yourselves;  hoard  it,  you  shrink 
Will  muscles  dwindle,  and  minds  fail  to  think. 
Let  it  alone.     It  mounts  up  like  a  flood, 
Filth  from  your  tenements;  God's  flesh  and  blood 
Racked  in  your  railroad  wrecks,  maimed    in    your 

mills. 

You  are  inertia  that  crushes  and  kills, 
Moves  through  its  weight;  is  blind.     More  you  are 

mind. 

Either  to  stifle  man's  spirit  resigned 
Or  its  sworn  champion.     Dwindle  or  grow. 
This  is  your  talent  who  no  others  know. 
Give  it  away  and  your  hands  are  not  clean, 
More  than  were  Pilate's.     You  serve  the  machine, 
You  who  should  rule  it.     You  shall  not  be  safe. 
Duty  means  danger.     Your  spirit  shall  chafe, 
Grapple  the  levers  (as  eyes  grasp  the  goal), 
Ride  on  past  wrecks  to  the  heights  of  the  soul. 

134 


Money  13$ 

Perilous,  strait,  is  the  path  past  the  pit. 

This  is  environment.     Are  you  unfit? 

Freedom  means  service.     You  hold  in  your  hands 

Blood  of  the  martyrs,  your  nation  that  stands, 

Rises  or  falls;  all  the  essence  of  time, 

Millions  of  lives  that  shall  wallow  or  climb. 

Fail,  the  world  fails  with  you.     Cheat  at  its  game, 

Those  you  love  best  bear  their  share  of  the  shame. 

Paris,  2'  8  '08. 


THE  BALLOT 

WHAT  do  you  make  of  it?     What  will  you  do 
with  it? 
How  do  you  think  that  you  well  will  get  through  with 

it? 

Here  is  the  problem  life  puts  in  your  hands. 
What  do  you  know  of  each  name  as  it  stands? 
Common  report  or  a  newspaper's  praises, 
Paid  for  and  false,  or  a  lie  that  amazes, 
Damning  your  friend,  or  else  nothing  at  all? 
Here  is  our  formula.     All  great  and  small 
Freely  shall  vote  without  favor  or  fear 
Govern  themselves.     Do  you  find  it  so  here? 
Here  are  the  candidates,  A,  B,  and  C, 
Quantities  known,  and  unknown,  Y  and  Z. 
What  do  you  know  of  them?     What  will  you  do  with 

them? 
Spending  each  year,  scarce  one  minute  or  two  with 

them? 

Many  spend  less.     Are  they  fools  more  than  you? 
Truth  shall  examine  you  claiming  its  due. 
Ignorant,  blundering,  reckless,  for  sale 
Here  you  walk  up  to  your  life's  task  and  fail. 
What  do  you  think  of  them,  daughters  and  wives? 
Are  these  men  fit  for  the  race  that  survives? 

136 


The  Ballot  137 

Who  in  one  million  of  you  docs  her  share 

Having  money  and  brains  and  full  leisure  to  spare? 

All  of  us  slaves  to  a  single  machine 

Mammon's  and  Moloch's,  to  aims  crude  and  mean, 

Breathless  and  blindly  we  blunder  each  day. 

Schoolboys  for  folly  are  scourged.     So  we  pay. 

We  are  in  haste  and  our  sons  shall  pay  more. 

Shall  they,  or  shall  we  yet  even  the  score? 

Or  must  we  wait  till  these  boys  in  our  schools 

Find  us  out  cowards  and  spendthrifts  and  fools? 

Paris,  12'  7  '08. 


THE  SANCTUM 

IS  this  cell  a  sanctum?     Surely  if  the  devils  keep 
Inner  shrines  in  Hell  obscurely.     Here  we  never 

sleep. 

For  a  single  soul's  damnation  all  the  world  we  scan, 
Throwing  mud  at  all  creation,  mocking  God  and  man. 

Here  we  hastened  for  our  schooling  when  our  youth 

was  white, 

Here  our  evil  angels  ruling  tripped  us  into  night, 
Here  the  chains  of  custom  hold  us,  women  that  we 

wed. 
Children's  little  arms  enfold  us,  lest  they  lack  for 

bread. 

Therefore  we  retail  our  treason,  tell  the  people  lies, 
Print  each  foul  and  perjured  reason,  point  each  vile 

surmise ; 

Do  the  bidding  of  our  masters  who  their  profit  take 
From  humanity's  disasters  and  its  felons  make. 

Here  these  narrow  walls  bear  witness  to  a  nation's 

shame, 

To  a  century's  unfitness.     Here  the  robbers  came, 

138 


THe  Sanctum  139 

Here  they   plotted,  here   they  bartered,  here   they 

bribed  and  bought; 
Sick  and  starving  millions  martyred,  strangled  love 

and  thought. 

Woman's  secret  shame  revealing,  we  do  murder  here. 
Manhood's  honor  tricking,  stealing;   fraud  and  hate 

and  fear, 

Servants  blind  of  evolution,  wired  to  this  chair 
For  a  soul's  electrocution ;  find  their  mouthpiece  there. 

Here  for  virtue's  vivisection  stands  this  desk,  a  rack, 
Until  lust  and  greed's  infection,  isolated,  black; 
Yields  to  truth  that  strikes  unswerving  though  our 

lesser  lives 
Pass,  their  tortured  purpose  serving.     So  the  race 

survives. 

New  York,  io'  18  '09. 


THE  ARMOR  BEARERS 

LORD  of  the  levelled  lightnings,  of  battle's  thunder 
cloud ; 
Thou  that  dost  shake  the  hearts  of  men  and  make 

and  break  the  proud, 

Granting  each  race  and  nation  grace,  each  in  its  space 
allowed: 

War  in  the  East  is  rising.     War  in  the  West  is  rife, 
And  the  nations  gird  their  armor  on  to  grapple  for  the 

life, 
Nor  shall  we  stand  aloof  for  long  in  a  world  o'er- 

whelmed  with  strife. 

Yellow  or  brown,  or  black  or  white,  one  race  shall 

lead  the  van. 
And  the  old  gods  wake.     And  the  false  gods  quake. 

Buddha,  Mohammed,  Pan, 
Come  side  by  side  to  conquer  Christ   in   the   last 

crusades  of  man. 

And  the  restless  city  sends  us  forth  to  sentinel  the 

seas; 
And  the  iron  lusts  that  spur  the  North,  through  peril 

and  unease, 
Shepherds  of  fleets  and  ocean  lanes  and  lives  and 

liberties. 

140 


THe  Armor  Bearers  141 

Harlot  and  thief  and  money  king;  their  burdens  all  we 

bear. 
Pander  and  felon,  faithless  wife,  the  price  we  pay  they 

share, 
They  that  dare  take  their  profit  from  a  starving  child's 

despair. 

Therefore  we  war  with  sea  and  storm  that  we  may 

war  with  men, 
Because  the  blind  must  lead  the  blind,  the  brute  be 

mastered  when 
Thy  vials  of  wrath  are  emptied  out  and  judgment 

comes  again. 

We  are  thine  armor  bearers,  Lord  of  all  power  and 

might, 
Guarding  thine  arms  till  thou  shalt  leave   thy  last 

frontier  of  light 
And  turn  to  earth  to  summon  us  to  Armageddon's 

fight. 

Then  if  our  quarrel  be  unjust  when  we  put  out  to  sea, 
Scapegoats  the  mob  before  them  thrust  their  shield 

defaced  to  be, 
Our  navies  are  as  drifting  dust,  and  crimsoned  clay 

are  we. 

San  Francisco,  5'  II  '09. 


SWEAT  SHOP  CHILDREN 

THESE  are  the  little  ones  of  three  or  four 
Whose  infant  fingers  never  learned  to  play 
Who  sit  and  pluck  the  basting  threads  all  day; 
Frail  strands  of  life  that  ravel  grimed  and  gray, 
That  fret  and  fray  and  fall  along  the  floor, 
In  filth  and  shadow  lost  are  seen  no  more. 

These  are  the  eyes  that  never  learn  to  smile, 

That  see  such  sunlight  as  the  diver  sees, 

Strained  through  the  nether  seas  where  never  breeze 

Shall  stir  the  stagnant  depths.     Of  such  are  these 

Who  eye  their  one  dim  window  blindly  while 

As  blind  their  mothers  stare,  imbruted,  vile. 

These  are  the  ears  that  hear  no  sound  of  mirth 
Through  the  black  winter's  bleak  and  bitter  cold; 
Through  the  gray  days  when  fog  wreathes,  fold  on  fold 
Strangle  the  acrid  air;  when  women  hold 
The  babes  unblessed  that  die  before  their  birth, 
In  August's  Tophet;  these  defile  the  earth. 

These  are  the  tongues  that  never  learn  to  tell 
Whisper  of  love  or  word  of  faith  or  cheer, 
Stories  of  stars  and  saints  and  all  things  dear, 
How  shall  they  sing  whose  only  faith  is  fear? 
How  shall  they  love  who  all  in  darkness  dwell  ? 
How  shall  they  hope  whose  only  home  is  hell? 

142 


Sweat  Shop  Children  143 

These  are  the  seeds  that  bear  their  bitter  fruit 
Of  pestilence  that  slays  both  flesh  and  soul ; 
God's  bowstring  mutes  that  bear  His  fatal  scroll. 
Mutely  they  answer  death's  unending  roll, 
Pander  and  felon,  thief  and  prostitute. 
Sharing  their  sentence  we  shall  stand  as  mute. 

Paris,  12'  i  '08. 


THE  CHILD 

YOU  who  are  breathless  through  your  busy  day, 
Stay.     Have  you  ever  wandered  from  the  way 
To  where  the  houses  stoop  and  sag  and  crowd, 
Debased  and  vile?     There  women  cry  aloud 
And  no  man  listens.     Have  you  climbed  within 
Up  the  steep  stairs  of  pain  and  shame  and  sin, 
And  sought  to  find  inside  some  shadowed  room 
A  sick  child  sleeping  in  the  stagnant  gloom, 
V'hose  pallid  face  and  sunken  dismal  eyes 
Still  might  grow  fair  and  mirror  God's  own  skies? 

Say  have  you  paused  to  watch  your  fellow's  face 
Near,  in  the  street  here,  manhood's  black  disgrace; 
Lips  like  a  sword  gash,  hard,  unsmiling,  strong 
In  all  the  iron  lusts  of  greed  and  wrong; 
Lost  to  delight  and  numb  to  tenderness. 
Dumbly  their  shame,  their  failure  they  confess, 
Like  the  cold  eyes.     The  drawn  and  frowning  brows 
Under  their  pent  two  lurking  captives  house. 
Restless,  insatiate,  the  millionaire 
Paces  his  cell,  serves  his  life  sentence  there. 

Could  you  but  bring  the  child  that  slumbers  there 
Out  of  the  spirit's  slums  to  larger  air 
Into  God's  sunshine,  let  His  winds  of  grace 
Lighten  the  lines  and  shadows  of  the  face, 

144 


The  Child  145 

Waken  the  soul  that  sinks,  and  yet  recalls 
Visions  of  sunlit  seas  and  garden  walls, 
Echoes  of  careless  song  and  love  and  mirth ; 
You  would  build  heaven's  kingdom  here  on  earth. 
41  You  must  be  born  again,"  the  Scripture  saith, 
Many,  so  many,  only  after  death. 

New  York,  9'  18  '07. 

10 


THE  VICTORS 

WE  have  fought  and  we  have  made  the  pace  and 
risen  from  the  ruck. 
We  have  got  our  grip  on   piracy  and   learned   to 

discount  luck. 
And  the  little  men  kow-tow  to  us.     The  big  ones  stand 

aside. 
In  hundred  horse-power  racing  cars  straight  to  our 

mark  we  ride. 
And  we  break  the  last  speed  limit.     And  we  hog  the 

whole  highway 
For  the  earth  to-day  belongs  to  those  who  have  the 

power  to  pay. 

We  have  dammed  the  whole  world's  money  lust,  its 

hunger  and  its  cold. 
With  our  irrigation  rentals  legislatures  bought  and 

sold, 

Fix  our  tariffs  and  our  subsidies.     Immunity  we  buy. 
And  justice  is  our  serving  wench.     Her  lovers  steal 

and  lie. 
They  are  wedded  to  our  wages.     They  are  panders  to 

our  will. 
We  make  machines  that  mangle  men  and  maim  and 

crush  and  kill. 

146 


The  Victors  147 

And  women  starve  and  walk  the  streets,  and  gutter 

children  curse 
In  the  sweatshops,  on  the  sidewalks,  that  defile  the 

universe. 
And  we  have  to  bear  the  brunt  of  it.     The  muck-rake 

handlers  tell 
How  the  masters  of  the  millions  try  to  raise  the  rents 

of  hell. 
And  the  press  that  can't  be  subsidized  its  searchlight 

arrows  sends 
Till  they  nail  us  to  the  target  of  a  life  that 's  lost  its 

friends. 

It 's  a  life  that  loses  interest  when  you  weary  of  the 

game, 
And  you  see  that  all  creation  will  be  running  just  the 

same 
When  you  have  to  leave  the  levers,  and  there. 's  no  one 

left  to  care; 
And  the  flowers  are  still  in  blossom  on  the  ramparts 

of  the  air, 
Where  the  stars  stake  out  their  heavens  to  the  souls 

that  stayed  in  touch; 
And  the  whole  that  you  fve  accomplished  does  n't 

seem  to  come  to  much. 

Yet  the  world  is  made  for  money,  and  for  record  stakes 

we  played. 
If  the  game  has  gone   against   us   we  will   quit  it 

unafraid, 
For  there  can't  be  worse  before  us  than  the  sense  of 

all  that 's  dead 


148  The  Victors 

With  our  broken  dreams  of  boyhood,  in  the  blackness 

there  ahead. 
And  our  work  shall  stand  to  witness  in  a  world  of 

righting  men 
Till  the  Master  of  to-morrow  whispers,  "Son,  begin 

again." 

New  York,  10'  11  '09. 


FLOTSAM 

PARKS  may  be  the  city's  breathing  places, 
If  they  are,  they  breed  tuberculosis, 
Little  ones  like  this  where  most  you  find  us. 
Hoboes,  beggars,  race-course  touts,  repeaters, 
Poolroom  sharps,  bums,  failures,  thieves  and  panders, 
There  's  the  city  lodging-house,  its  vermin 
Bred  and  fed  by  us  for  generations. 
There  are  free  lunch  counters  and  the  bread  line. 
There  are  easy  marks  with  dimes  and  nickels. 
Beer  is  cheap,  the  papers  are  still  cheaper — 
And  cigar  butts  can  be  had  for  nothing. 
There  are  women  fools  enough  to  trust  us, 
Prostitutes  and  our  own  wives  and  daughters, 
When  you  're  up  against  it  hard,  the  wood-yard. 
When  the  weather  's  cold  you  break  a  window, 
One  on  Broadway  filled  with  phoney  diamonds, 
Go  to  jail  and  let  the  city  keep  you, 
Laugh  at  starving  fools  that  think  they  're  honest. 
Nothing  matters  much  unless  you  're  thirsty 
Or  a  copper  beats  you  up  for  nothing, 
Just  one  finger  of  the  hand  that  scratches 
When  we  bite  too  hard.     You  're  just  as  lousy 
As  we  are  ourselves.     Your  lungs  are  putrid 
With  us  and  our  like  and  we  infect  you. 

149 


150  Flotsam. 

So  we  go  along  with  you  to  judgment. 
Hell,  you  've  got  to  die  as  well  as  we  have. 
Then,  what  good  will  all  your  money  do  you? 
If  we  had  one  chance  you  had  a  thousand. 
God  himself  can't  say  that  we  have  made  you, 
And  the  devil  knows  you  '11  stand  for  us  then. 

New  York,  10*  14  '09. 


YOU  of  the  high 
sublimed, 


YOU 

er   selfishness  whose   god  is  self 


Whose  cult  is  culture  carved  or  sung,  or  written, 

painted,  rhymed, 
Who  hug  your  little  hoard  along  the  ledge  where  you 

have  climbed; 

And  dream  you  near  the  mountain- top,  and  dread  to 

look  below 
From  misty  seats  Olympian  and   life's  grim  battle 

know, 
And  men  like  you  that  starve  and  slay,  whose  blood 

and  tears  must  flow. 

You  feed  to  surfeiting  with  lies,  you  raise  the  false 

ideal 

Of  sterile  ease  immaculate,  that  others  dimly  feel 
Since  you  are  far,  aloof,  unknown;  is  fair  and  high  and 

real. 

You  blindly  die.     Unfit  to  strive,  the  beauty  of  the 

strong, 
The  soul  that  keeps  its  light  alive  through  warfare 

long  with  wrong 
That  soiled  and  scarred  shall  still  survive,  a  living 

marching  song, 

151 


Is  not  for  you;  ye  faithless  Scribes  and  Pharisees  to 
day 

Who  anise,  mint  and  cummin  weigh,  and  tithes  of 
trifles  pay; 

Who  wrest  the  spirit  of  tne  law  and  love's  great  soul 
betray ; 

Whose  single  talent  vellum  wrapped,  in  gloss  and 

comment  hid, 
Must  moulder  more  than  multiply  until  the  world  is 

rid 
Of  moral  loss  and  leprosy;  till  men  your  like  forbid. 

You  are  the  palace  eunuchs  of  the  world's  seraglio 

dark. 
You  are  the  spirit's  panders.  Your  gifts  like  jewels 

mark 
A  soul's  seduction  from  the  light  of  truth.  And  still 

we  hark 

To  prophets  false,  to  priests  that  preach  the  symbol 

for  the  deed. 
Whose  empty  chalice  gem-adorned  you  hold  to  hands 

that  bleed. 
For  you  have  spilled  the  wine  of  life  and  crucified  its 

creed. 

And  still  the  people  suffer  you,  pain  brings  forgetful- 
ness, 

And  strife  and  grief  each  day  grow  great;  and  loyal 
love  grows  less; 

Deserters  from  the  cause  of  God  whose  name  your 
lips  confess; 


You  153 

Clergy,  professors,  critics,  all  who  share  the  cynic's 
view, 

Children  who  dream  till  scales  shall  fall  and  judg 
ment  day  be  due. 

Ye  know  not  what  ye  do.  For  all  is  pardon,  so  for 
you. 

Paris,  n1  27  '08. 


IX— VARIA 
THE  PHONOGRAPH 

I  AM  the  voice  of  your  race  and  hour,  strident, 
mechanical,  harsh. 
And  my  megaphone  with  its  brazen  flower  like  a  lily 

in  the  marsh 
In  the  stagnant  souls  and  minds  of  men  quickens  a 

vague  perfume 
Till  the  past  grows  near  and  clear  again  through  the 

gray  ness  and  the  gloom. 
And  the  seeds  of  thought  and  of  feeling  hid  in  the 

blackness  of  the  clay 

My  silent  record's  dust  amid,  I  harrow  forth  to-day. 
And  they  bloom  in  the  faces  wan  and  worn  and  they 

brighten  weary  eyes, 
And  faith  and  hope  and  love  reborn  make  a  moment's 

Paradise. 
Where  the  blubber  melts  and  the  ceiling  drips  in  the 

Eskimo's  hut  of  snow, 
In  the  foc'sles  dim  of  deep-sea  ships;  where  the  trades 

through  palm  trees  blow, 
Under  the  blaze  of  the  tropic  stars,  on  the  islands  of 

the  mist, 
Where   the  mining   camp  the  mountain  scars,  my 

monotones  persist. 

154 


The  Phonograph  155 

In  the  forest  dark,  in  the  darker  den  whence  the  sav 
age  raids  the  slum, 
I  charm  the  hearts  of  brutes  and  men,  I  waken  voices 

dumb. 
More  than  the  printed  book  I  say;  more  than  the 

written  word, 
Or  the  preacher's  art,  I  seize  and  sway.     Wherever 

my  voice  is  heard 
And  the  people  gather  by  twos  and  threes,  red  men 

and  black  and  white, 

I  open  larger  liberties  of  vision  and  delight. 
I  am  the  voice  of  your  race  and  hour,  the  sound  of 

your  vast  machine, 
And  a  gospel  new  of  truth  and  power,  a  word  from 

the  world  unseen. 
Strident,  mechanical,  harsh  am  I,  to  your  breathless 

measures  set, 
But  I  tell  of  a  land  beyond  the  sky,  of  a  life  ye  shall 

not  forget. 

S.  S.  Medic,  2'  16  '09. 


THE  SONG  OF  THE  WIRES 

BIRTH  of  the  world  and  the  wrestle  of  elements, 
sudden  division  of  darkness  from  light, 

Such  were  the  powers  whose  strength  had  begotten  us, 
e'er  we  were  prisoned  in  aeons  of  night. 

Then  came  the  miners,  they  found  and  they  fashioned 
us,  stretched  us  afar  over  earth  and  below. 

Some  in  the  sunshine  are  harpstrings,  Aeolian,  reso 
nant,  struck  by  the  winds  when  they  blow; 

Some  in  the  shadow  taught  tenderer  harmonies, 
laughter  of  lovers  bring  lip  unto  lip  ; 

Mother's  devotion  and  children's  endearments  and 
tidings  of  cheer  from  the  tempest- tossed  ship, 

Whirl  round  the  world.  And  we  whisper  the  infamies 
men  and  our  masters  constrain  us  to  tell, 

Their  slanders  and  rumors  and  treasons  and  per 
juries.  Secrets  eternal  of  science  we  spell. 

Lifework  of  prophets  and  priests  and  philosophers, 
vision  of  poets  and  raptures  of  saints, 

Notes  that  arise  from  the  stress  of  our  symphony, 
cries  of  the  flesh  and  the  spirit  that  faints. 

And  the  roar  of  the  market-place  swells  and  shall 

storm,  overwhelming  the  day, 
And  your  homes  and  your  hearts  shall  invade  and 

possess,  and  the  night  shall  not  drive  it  away. 
156 


The  Song  of  the  Wires  i$7 

And  its  echoes  shall  trouble  your  slumbers  while  you 

start  at  our  summoning  bells; 
To  the  hills  and  the  seas  shall  pursue  you  with  a  spell 

that  allures  and  compels. 
And  the  forests  shall  yield  you  no  refuge.     You  shall 

raze  them  and  set  them  ablaze. 
You  shall  prospect  for  gold  in  the  desert  with  the  thirst 

that  first  maddens,  then  slays. 
You  shall  toil  and  shall  widen  the  city  till  its  ulcer 

of  steel  and  of  stone 
Eats  the  flesh  from  God's  earth  and  its  beauty.     You 

flay  the  world  bare  to  the  bone. 
You  shall  strive  and  your  hearts  shall  be  hardened  and 

shortened  your  sight  and  your  breath, 
You  shall  stifle  your  souls  and  shall  rest  not  till  you 

lie  in  the  silence  of  death. 
This  is  the  truth  that  we  tell  in  a  tongue  inarticulate, 

mute, 
This  is  our  warning  and  prayer  in  the  path  of  your 

breathless  pursuit. 
Voices  that  wrangled  in  chaos,  through  silence  of 

centuries  taught 
Service  and  order  and  law  and  the  ultimate  triumph 

of  thought, 
Freed  by  your  hands  to  enlighten  your  spirits,  and 

rendered  again 
Slaves  to  your  weakness  to-day  that  to-morrow  in 

strength  shall  remain, 
Powers  that  throb  in  your  pulses  and  order  the  drift 

of  the  sun, 
Weighing  and  strictly  recording  the  good  and  the  ill 

ye  have  done, 


158  The  Song  of  the  Wires 

Messengers  dumb  and  divine,  and  your  kinsmen,  we 

counsel  you  still ; 
Watching  your  steps  for  a  sign  of  the  way  of  the 

infinite  Will. 

Paris,  ii'  7  '08. 


THE  SONG  OF  THE  TYPEWRITER 

I'M  the  god  from  the  machine  of  modern  trade, 
And  my  oracle  's  a  rattle  and  a  jerk. 
Flying  fingers  quiver  quick 
While  I  race  the  ticker's  click. 
So  I  hold  a  world  of  weariness  to  work. 

I  'm  a  bundle  keen  of  slender  twitching  nerves, 

And  the  keyboard  where  the  market  prices  play. 

And  the  note  that  I  give  forth, 

Restless  children  of  the  North, 

You  can  hear  it  in  your  voices  more  each  day. 

When  the  long  dull  winter  afternoon  drags  slow, 

And  each  file  you  lift  seems  weighted  down  with  lead, 

And  the  dollar  signs  grow  dim 

And  the  rows  of  figures  swim, 

You  can  hear  my  hammers  pounding  in  your  head. 

They  will  play  you  up  success  that  cannot  last, 
They  will  tell  you  tales  of  failure's  crushing  blow, 
But  however  fares  the  quest 
They  will  give  you  little   rest 
Till  the  end  when  there  is  nothing  much  to  show. 

159 


160       The  Song'  of  the  Typewriter 

Better  rest  a  bit  and  turn  your  weary  eyes 

To  the  girl  who  lays  her  fingers  on  my  keys, 

Just  to  catch  her  weary  smile; 

And  to  dream  a  little  while 

In  the  long  forgotten  kingdom  of  heart's  ease. 

I  'm  the  god  from  the  machine  that  holds  you  fast. 

And  my  sibyl  slurs  her  copy  when  she  can. 

Though  her  beauty  is  n't  much 

It  shall  add  the  saving  touch 

To  an  iron  world  made  merchandise  by  man. 

New  York,  6'  4  '03. 


THE  TUNNEL 

THEY  have  taken  the  strongest  and  slightest  of 
things,  they  have  prisoned  the  powers  of  the  air. 
They  have  narrowed  the  sweep  of  the    whirlwind's 

wings  to  a  half-inch  width ;  and  there 
Each  ghostly  hafted  hammer  rings  with  the  rhythm 
of  an  iron  prayer. 

And  labor's  endless  litanies  in  this  crypt  that  is  carved 

in  night, 
Sound  while  the  woods  and  the  waters  freeze  and  the 

ground  grows  hard  and  white; 
While  the  spring  awakes  and  the  summer  breeze,  and 

the  world  is  bathed  in  light. 

And  the  rock  that  grew  hard  at  the  lava's  height  in  a 

crater  cold  gives  way. 
And  the  drills  march  on,  and  the  dynamite  its  siege 

guns  brings  to  play. 
And  the  powers  of  darkness  turn  to  flight;  and  the 

workers  win  toward  day. 

Somewhere  beyond  on  the  other  side  of  the  mountain 

men  are  toiling, 
Mining  the  winter's  citadel  and  its  storms  and  rigors 

foiling ; 
Marking  humanity's  advance  by  a  cable's  ceaseless 

coiling. 

it  161 


162  THe  Tunnel 

Slowly  they  move  to  the  tunnel's  end  and  the  last 

pale  arclights  glimmer, 
Where  the  burnt  out  carbons  strew  the  way,  with 

faces  gray  and  grimmer 
As  the  screen  of  stone  between  grows  thin,  and  the 

flames  of  life  burn  dimmer : 

Till  the  echoing  hammers  answer  fast;  and  their  toil 

in  the  tunnel  ended, 
And  the  last  black  barrier  rent  and  passed,  and  the 

wall  by  death  defended; 
Their  own  shall  lead  them  out  at  last  into  sunlight 

new  and  splendid. 

Paris,  ii1  12  '08. 


THE  COTTON  MILL 

THE  children  in  the  tropics  ran 
Naked  and  warm  and  free  and  fair. 
We  preached  till  trade  in  prints  began. 
We  brought  our  gin  and  Bibles  there 
And  found  new  ways  to  fetter  man. 

We  dammed  the  rivers,  rapids  taught 
To  ply  the  spindle,  wheel  and  loom, 
And  children  from  the  steerage  caught 
And  prisoned  them  in  noise  and  gloom 
And  long  and  blindly  greed  has  wrought: 

A  spider  in  a  cranny  gray 
That  sits  and  spins  his  strands  of  steel, 
That  sucks  the  children's  lives  away, 
Their  thirst  and  hunger  cannot  feel 
Or  hear  the  words  they  cannot  say. 

Outside  the  world  is  warm  and  bright, 
Within  they  languish  pale  and  thin, 
And  dust  and  lint  and  plague  and  blight 
Their  shrunken  chests  are  breathing  in. 
They  buried  four  last  night. 

And  yet  they  smile  in  childish  glee 
As  dancing  motes,  when  through  the  clouds 
The  sunshine  breaks,  and  strive  to  see; 
And  patient  sit  and  spin  their  shrouds, 
And  wonder  wistfully. 
163 


164  The  Cotton  Mill 

They  cough  and  choke  and  strangle  there, 
And  greed  the  spider  old  and  gray 
From  each  frail  life  exacts  his  share. 
We  women  who  his  prices  pay 
His  leper's  livery  wear. 

Paris,  10  '3  '06. 


THE  SUPREME  COURT 

THIS  is  our  National  Academy 
Of  human  rights,  the  sanctuary  of  freedom. 
Here  there  is  silence.     While  the  Senate  chaffers 
And  the  House  raves,  and  all  the  world  outside 
Batters  its  breaches  in  the  walls  of  peace, 
These  old  men  sit  deliberate  and  wise, 
And  weigh  their  evidence.     So  shall  you  see 
A  laboratory's  balance  room,  the  scales 
Where  twenty  letters  on  a  sheet  of  paper 
Shall  outweigh  ten.     They  place  their  test  tubes  there, 
Write  down  the  ultimate  analysis 
Of  equity,  until  the  formula 
Of  justice  stands  assured,  irrevocable. 
This  is  the  higher  criticism  of  truth, 
In  flesh  and  blood  beyond  all  written  records. 
And  here  the  hand  of  God  as  truly  writes 
As  when  the  lightnings  shook  the  mountain  top 
And  Moses  bore  the  tables  of  the  law 
From  trembling  Sinai.     Not  in  storm  or  earthquake, 
The  shoutings  of  the  street,  the  roar  of  war 
And  revolutions,  does  He  speak  to-day, 
But  in  the  still  small  voice  that  here  ordains 
Cities  of  refuge  for  the  souls  of  men 
Whereof  this   is  the  chief.     So  long  as  we 

165 


i66  THe  Supreme  Court 

Shall  guard  this  inner  shrine  inviolate, 
Passion  and  avarice,  unrest  and  treason, 
Shall  be  no  more  than  fevers  in  the  body 
While  the  brain  rules,  and  will  indomitable 
Holds  fast  our  Anglo-Saxon  heritage 
Of  freedom  and  fair  play  to  least  and  greatest. 

New  York,  10'  30  '09. 


THE  REGIMENT 

THi:  traffic  clears,  and  the  crowd  to  the  curb  shifts 
to  the  roll  of  drums, 
As  down  the  dusty  avenue  the  long  brown  column 

comes. 
And  their  faces  match  their  khaki.     From  Luzon's 

tropic  suns 
They  took  this  tan,  and  the  glint  of  their  eyes  like 

the  glitter  of  their  guns 
Flamed  on  the  way  to  Pekin  till  they  saw  the  flag  still 

there. 
They  bear  their  faded  colors  past,  and  something  in 

the  air 

Lessens  the  roar  of  the  city !     One  gray  bystander  sees 
The  Stars  and  Stripes  at  Gettysburg  and  faces  set  like 

these 
When    death    broke    battle's    mould.     They    pass, 

indomitable,  strong, 

Wearing  the  deathless  order  of  discipline.     The  throng 
Gentile  and  Jew  and  Kelt  and  Hun  and  their  own 

blood  brothers  thrill 
To  the  ripple  of  their  cadenced  ranks;  for   now   the 

drums  are  still 
And  the  measured  tread  of  feet  that  marched  to  set 

the  Cubans  free, 
Falls  on  the  asphalt  like  the  sound  of  breakers  when 

the  sea 

167 


i68  The  Regiment 

Strikes  on  the  sands  at  midnight  to  mark  the  pulse 

of  time. 
And  the  nation's  heart-beat  blends  with  them;  the 

boys  that  breathless  climb 
To  a  lamp-post  or  a  column's  height,  the  girls  whose 

ardent  eyes 
Wake  to  a  world  of  fighting  men  and  the  dream  that 

never  dies, 
Embattled,  grim,  in  touch  with  them;  crude  as  brown 

powder  grains 
That  leap  to  life  and  shake  the  air  when  freedom  fires 

her  trains. 

Essential,  hard,  dynamic,  fit  and  silent  still  they  go, 
Down  the  pathway  of  their  duty  to  a  goal  that  none 

may  know. 
Here  is  the  nation's  last  reserve,  these  and  their  next 

of  kin 
When  the  ends  of  earth  are  looted  bare  and  the  years 

of  wrath  begin. 
For  each  heart  guards  its  citadel  and  these  shall  serve 

alone 
When  millions  fail  and  navies  sink  and  forts  are 

overthrown. 
They  pass  and  the  city's  tumult  throbs  through  its 

arteries 
And  fills  them  full  of  greed  and  lust,  dishonor  and 

disease, 
And  dreams  insane  of  peace  unearned,  decadence  and 

disgrace. 
But  still  the  red  blood  corpuscles  shall  vitalize  the  race. 

New  York,  10'  23  '09. 


THE  BALLET 

LISTEN,  the  flutes  of  fairyland  are  sounding  far 
away. 
And  the  curtain  climbs,  and  the  footlights  flame  like 

the  dawn  of  a  summer  day 

And  out  of  the  shadows  steal  the  sprites  to  whirl  like 
the  winds  at  play. 

You  that  are  free  from  the  bonds  of  flesh  shall  see 

them  dancing  there 
Through  the  lights,  and  the  shadows'  shifting  mesh, 

immortal,  fresh  and  fair 
Like  the  living  notes  of  a  song  that  floats  forever  in 

the  air. 

Look  where  one  comes  to  the  sound  of  drums  and 

oboes  as  she  trips 
Touching  the  hidden  hands  of  life  with  lifted  finger 

tips, 
With  the  smiling  pride  of  the  premiere  exultant  on  her 

lips. 

She  is  incarnate  joy  and  youth,  beauty  whose  soul  is 

grace 
Like  the  flowers  that  sway  in  the  breeze  of  May. 

And  the  spring  has  flushed  her  face. 
And  the  heart  of  the  old  world  warms  to  her  for  an 

hour  and  a  breathing  space. 
169 


The  Ballet 

And  the  sombre  soul  of  the  city  wakes  to  a  season  of 

delight 
And  its  plaudits  fall  as  its  pulses  stir  like  the  roses  red 

and  white 
She  crushes  to  her  bosom  there  to  bear  into  the  night. 

There  there  is  sorrow  and  despair  and  the  weight  of 

lonely  years, 
She  goes  to  join  her  sisters  there  in  an  ocean  salt  with 

tears 
And  the  curtain  falls.     Like  a  breaking  wave    her 

triumph  disappears. 

Day  after  day  from  the  depths  of  life,  from  the  ends 

of  the  earth  they  rise 
Wave  after  wave  with  its   froth  and  foam  and  its 

impulse  towards  the  skies. 
Night  after  night  they  cast  their  spray  and  they  die 

as  daylight  dies. 

And  the  line  of  the  ballet  surging  high  like  the  comb 
er's  curving  crest, 

Feels  the  pulse  of  life  as  it  swells  and  falls  by  a  pur 
pose  strong  possessed, 

As  passion  on  through  Cosmos  crawls  to  a  harbor 
sure  of  rest. 

New  York,  9'  21  '09. 


THE  SYMPHONY 

THE  great  proscenium  arch  gapes  wide,  the  gates 
of  darkness  fall. 
A  single  cornet's  note  has  cried  its  challenge  clear  to 

all. 

Each  crowded  tier  at  either  side  thrills  through  the 
darkened  hall. 

We  look  into  another  world;  God's  stage  with  music 

set, 
We  watch  the  leader's  baton  swing,  and  cares  and 

fears  forget, 
Our  breath  and  pulses  keep  his  time,  and  weary  eyes 

grow  wet. 

We  hear  the  rustic  of  the  leaves,  like  winds  that  wake 

at  dawn. 
To  whisper  peace  to  sleepless  ears.    On  faces  white 

and  drawn 
The  dew  of  heaven's  kisses  lies.    The  hour  of  rest  is 

gone. 

Swift  as  the  rush  of  sunrise  as  the  rays  that  blazon  day 
The  full  crescendo  sings  and  soars.     A  skylark  melts 

away 
In  music  in  the  blue  above.     The  shades  no  more 

delay. 

171 


The  Symphony 

They  fade;  all  silence  ceases  as  noon  comes  surging 
high. 

An  arm  that  drags  the  zenith  down  is  raised  to  reach 
the  sky, 

To  lift  a  thousand  dormant  souls  from  depths  where 
spirits  die. 

He  grips  us,  gains  us,  holds  us;  for  his  moment  rare, 

supreme. 

The  master's  soul  reborn  in  him  has  realized  its  dream. 
And  heaven  on  high  and  earth  below  one  world,  one 

second  seem. 

A  string  has  snapped,  the  tension  breaks,  the  sym 
phony  is  flawed, 

A  woman  laughs.  Another  yawns.  The  brute  but 
half  o'erawed 

Stirs  restlessly.  Men  plan  again,  the  tools  of  greed 
and  fraud. 

For  sunset   always   follows   noon.     The   powers   of 

darkness  rise 
To  meet  a  meteor  chord  that  falls  in  splendor  from  the 

skies; 
The  leader's  pride  like  Lucifer's  grows  less  before  our 

eyes. 

We  were  too  weary  to  applaud.    And  night's  forget- 

fulness 
Fell  like  a  curtain  on  our  pain.     To-day  through 

storm  and  stress 
The  echoes  rise,  insistent,  strong,  to  stir  and  save  and 

bless. 


THe  SympHony  173 

For  we  are  weak,  unresting,  blind.     She  is  not  here  to 

see, 
To  say  our  triumphs  have  not  failed,  our  hour  is  yet 

to  be, 
Our  losses  are  our  instruments  in  heaven's  symphony 

Paris,  12*  26  '08. 


THE-  CAMERA 

SINCE  you  have  not  eyes  to  see 
Since  you  have  not  faith  to  find 
Vision,  vistas,  liberty; 
I  was  made  to  aid  the  blind. 

I  am  beauty's  dwarf  and  slave, 
Cramped  and  colorless  and  cold. 
Black  my  art  is.     From  the  grave 
I  can  charm  your  hours  of  old. 

When  the  summer  suns  have  set, 
Winter's  twilight  stark  and  white 
I  invade  lest  you  forget 
All  the  loveliness  of  light. 

Where  the  slum,  a  shadow  black 
Bars  your  trail  to  things  above, 
I  adventure,  bringing  back 
Children's  laughter,  youth  and  love. 

Prisoned  beauty's  slave  I  speed; 
Painter,  poet,  errant  knight; 
Cry  for  succor  till  you  heed, 
Then  she  blesses  you  with  light. 

Paris,  ii1  19  '08. 


174 


X— VERITIES 
PIONEERS 

THEY    have    blazed    the    way    with    bloodshed 
where  their  fires  of  torture  burned, 
Signals  black  of  smoke  that  showed  where  danger  lay. 
And  the  young  men  turned  to  seek  them.     And  their 

strong  hearts  westward  yearned 
And  went  camping  with  the  sun  from  day  to  day. 

And  they  followed  running  water  and  took  counsel 

with  the  breeze 
And  the  stars  they  closely  questioned  when  they 

could. 
And  their  sign -posts  were  the  mosses  and  the  slanting 

trunks  of  trees 
In  the  darkness  and  the  dangers  of  the  wood. 

Close  behind  them  came  their  women.     They  were 

splendid,  brave  and  strong; 
Fresh  and  fair  as  forest  children  that  they  bore. 
They  were  freedom's  primal  pilgrims.     Love  and  war 

their  marching  song 

Through  the  shadowed  silence  echoed  more  and  more. 

175 


Pioneers 

Through  the  forest's  dim  cathedrals,  through    the 

windows  autumn  stained, 

As  they  went  their  eyes  were  wise  the  truth  to  see. 
From  the  foes  that  lay  in  ambush  where  the  red  man's 

arrows  rained, 
From  the  wilderness  of  death  their  souls  went  free. 

In  the  distance  they  are  calling  through  the  ghosts  of 

fallen  trees 

Where  the  city's  voice  makes  deaf  our  modern  ears. 
We  have  dulled  our  eyes  with  ledgers,  loosed  the 

sinews  of  our  knees, 
Shortened  breath  and  stride,  who  once  were  pioneers. 

But  the  impulse  and  the  measure  of  their  marching 

stirs  us  still, 

And  the  instinct  of  the  race  that  shall  not  fail ; 
While  we  bring  the  big  battalions  of  to-day  to  work 

their  will 
And  we  follow  where  they  scouted  down  the  trail. 

Paris,  5'  1 1  '09. 


THE  TALENT 

SO  when  this  man  was  on  his  sick-bed  laid 
And  tasted  death  his  heart  grew  sore  afraid, 
"O  God,  if  there  be  any  God,"  he  prayed. 

"Because  Thy  law  was  hard  I  lived  in  fear. 
Wrapped  in  its  napkin  see  Thy  talent  here, 
Shrouded  and  saved  for  Thee  this  many  a  year." 

And  Life,  his  lord,  made  answer :  "Thou  hast  failed 
Miser  of  years  and  seconds  death  assailed. 
Nor  has  thy  cowardice  at  all  availed. 

"Life  is  thy  talent,  thine  to  use  or  lose, 
Hoarded  it  wastes  like  withered  heart  and  thews, 
Life  is  a  game  where  all  must  stake  and  choose. 

"  Life  is  a  battle  where  no  mortal  may 
Stand  and  look  on,  where  all  one  law  obey, 
And  none  dare  shrink  and  shameless  steal  away. 

"  Who  wrestles  not  with  life  and  fells  his  foes, 
Holds  fast  his  wife  and  children;  never  knows 
Warrior's  and  lover's  triumphs,  trials  and  woes; 

"Who  sleepless  serves  not  science,  toils  nor  prays 
Through  art's  long  ritual  of  laborious  days, 
To  raise  his  God  made  flesh  that  lives  always; 

ia  177 


178  THe  Talent 

"  Who  in  love's  sacraments  has  never  shared; 
Feasted  his  friends,  nor  for  the  dying  cared; 
Nor  his  own  sleep  to  save  the  starving  spared; 

"  He  has  not  lived.     In  him  the  vital  flame 
Reverting  trembles  backward  whence  it  came, 
And  he  shall  die,  as  dies  unheard  his  name." 

Then  said  life's  traitor,  "Lord  what  shall  I  do?" 
Answered  his  Master,  "Sleep,  then  strive  anew." 
And  round  his  eyes  the  veil  of  darkness  drew. 

S.  S.  Navua,  3'  21  '09. 


THE  VISION 

DEAD  walls  have  made  your  spirits  dead,  and 
dust  has  dulled  your  eyes. 

You  see  a  single  step  ahead.     You  haggle  and  devise. 
You  crowd  one  corner  of  the  earth  to  count  and  hoard 

your  gold, 

Misers  of  love  and  smiles  and  mirth,  whose  souls  for 
shams  are  sold. 

The  dawn  is  robed  in  splendor.     You  will  not  wake 

to  see. 

From  twilight's  promise  tender  you  hurry  breathlessly 
Into  the  blaze  of  restless  nights  that  counterfeit  the 

day. 
The  stars  hang  out  their  signal  lights.     Your  thoughts 

are  far  away. 

Your  brothers  toil  in  darkness  long.     Their  children 

starve  and  die. 
Out  of  their  sickness  you  grow  strong.     You  steal 

from  them  the  sky. 
You  cheat  the  blind.     The  weak  you  maim.     You 

grudge  them  light  and  air. 
You  take  your  tithes  of  women's  shame  that  makes 

your  daughters  fair. 

Your  whole  horizon  slowly  shrinks  as  your  hard  hearts 

shrink 
While  you  relinquish  wholly  freedom  to  feel  and  think. 


i8o  TKe  Vision 

You  are  but  babes  within  the  womb  of  the  travail 

of  to-day 
Till  angels  from  your  living  tomb  shall  roll  the  rock 

away. 

Sorrow  maybe  or  a  baby's  smile;  and  your  soul  is  born 

anew. 
And  you  raise  your  eyes  in  wonder  while  the  sunrise 

turns  to  blue. 
And  you  see  the  sky  in  a  tuft  of  flowers,  in  a  gutter 

urchin's  eyes, 
And  the  rain  comes  rippling  down  in  showers  on  the 

streams  of  Paradise. 

And  you  see  the  streets  of  the  city,  and  the  blind  and 

breathless  throng. 
And  a  part  of  an  infinite  pity  has  made  your  purpose 

strong ; 
From  all   that  chokes  and   thwarts  and  kills,   the 

prisoners  to  set  free 
On  the  holy  places  of  the  hills  and  the  highways  of  the 

sea. 

Beauty  that  is  your  heritage  belongs  to  you  once 
more, 

And  the  child's  true  heart  that  cannot  age,  that  smil 
ing  shall  adore; 

The  loveliness  that  will  redeem  the  lives  you  learn  to 
share. 

You  have  awakened  to  the  dream  and  the  Vision  that 
is  prayer. 

Bath  Beach,  9'  8  '09. 


THE  MACHINE 

WHEN  Joseph  ruled  in  Egypt  he  was  master  of 
our  craft, 
And  Pharaoh's  prison  taught  him  how  the  wheels 

were  greased  with  graft; 
And  he  taxed  the  people  shrewdly,  and  he  made  his 

little  deal 

With  the  priest's  machine  that  hated  him  since  less 
was  left  to  steal. 

When  Caesar  wrote  his  Gallic  War,  the  senate  fixed 

the  slate, 
And  they  shipped  him  to  the  Philippines  to  sidetrack 

him,  too  late. 
And  he  went  and  made  his  own  machine  of  iron 

fighting  men 
And  the  legions  smashed  the  primaries,  and  he  was 

boss  again. 

This  is  creation's  story  from  the  first  primeval  years 
When  the  cave-men  shamans  got  their  grip  on  king 

and  people's  fears 
And  they  worked  the  spirits  overtime,  till  some  one 

guessed  the  game 
And  made  them  stand  in  with  him.     And  it 's  always 

been  the  same. 

People  are  sheep.     We  've  Scripture's  word  for  it, 

and  so  they  know 

But  very  little  more  about  the  way  they  ought  to  go. 

181 


182  THe  MacKine 

You  fleece  them  close;  their  wool  grows  fast.     And  if 

you  did  n't — why 
Worse  wolves  than  we  are  waiting,  and  they  'd  simply 

stray  and  die. 

You  've  got  to  keep  them  in  the  rut.     You  crowd  them 

on  the  train, 
You  've  got  to  have  conductors  and  brakemen  and 

the  brain 
That  built  and  fired  the  engine;  and  that  fires  the 

driver  too 
When  he  gets  to  think  he  knows  it  all,  and  has  no  use 

for  you. 

We  had  to  live  like  other  men,  and  so  we  took  our 

share. 
Maybe  it  was  a  bit  too  large.     So  now  we  pay  our 

fare. 
We  keep  the  traffic  moving  though.     One  thing  we 

know.     The  way 
To  make  men  value  anything  like  freedom.     Make 

them  pay. 

If  they  won't  give  time  or  blood,  then  cash.   We  can't 

and  won't  step  down, 
And  let  reformers  wreck  the  train,  so  long  as  any 

town 
They  can't  make  good  in  for  two  years.     But  when 

they  've  learned  the  game, 
And  win  promotion  to  our  place,  we  '11  be  more  glad 

than  tame. 

Paris,  11'  1 8  '08. 


THE   PRAETORIANS 

/CARTHAGE  had  her  money  kings  that  spoiled 

V^        the  seven  seas, 

Trusts  that  stole  and  slew  and  lied  and  lusted  at 

their  ease, 
Wholesale  hired  their  soldiery,   safety  bought  with 

shame, 
Tempted  Rome  to  war  with  them  and  sank  in  blood 

and  flame. 

Rome  that  thinned  her  legions'   blood  learned   to 

decimate 

Valor  of  her  pioneers  that  made  her  strong  and  great, 
Formed   her  Caesars'   body-guards  of  aliens;    paid 

them  well, 
Lost  the  art  of  war  herself  and  then  went  down  to 

hell. 

Likewise  in  Byzantium  we  were  Varangars, 

Ruin  and  revolt  repulsed,  and  tribute  took  for  scars, 

Milked   the  gambling   houses  dry,   and   taxed   the 

prostitute, 
Saw  the  church  complacent  eye  our  long  campaign  of 

loot. 

183 


184  THe  Praetorians 

Now  we  pay  praetorians,  Irish,  Germans,  Jews; 
Do  our  stealing  wholesale  and  their  protection  use; 
Let  them  scare  the  little  thieves  and  lock  them  up 

for  life, 
If  they  won't  divide  the  graft;  let  them  hold  the  knife 

To  our  own  throats  now  and  then,  reckless  in  our  haste ; 
Let  them  tax  the  powers  that  prey,  spoil,  defile  and 

waste ; 
Let  them  make  their  red  machines  the  image  of  our 

own. 
(So  we  have  to  compromise  where  once  we  thieved 

alone). 

After  us  the  deluge.     Shameless  in  our  greed, 
Nero  and  Caligula,  we  our  people  bleed. 
Roundsmen  and  praetorians  who  have  learned  the 

game, 
Goad  the  slums  to  savagery:  all  human  and  the  same. 

Messalina  motors  past,  our  predestined  mate. 
Arabs,  Kaffirs,  Japanese  look  and  lust  and  hate. 
Shadows  of  their  airship  swarms  fall  athwart  our  sky. 
Manhood,  freedom  for  our  sons  our  money  may  not 
buy. 

Paris,  ii'  26  '08. 


THE  HOME 

WELL  our  Paradise  was  lost; 
Sinless  Eden  made  our  own 
Wistfully  in  dreams  alone; 
Hut  of  snow  in  polar  frost, 
Cave  or  tent  or  open  sky, 
Where  we  trysted,  you  and  I : 
Eden  found  in  children's  smiles. 

Love,  the  endless  weary  miles 
That  our  restless  race  has  trod 
On  its  road  that  leads  to  God 
Still  arc  urgent  incomplete. 
Still  the  murmur  of  the  sea 
Makes  our  moments'  threnody: 
Life  so  short  and  life  so  sweet. 

Well  our  Paradise  was  won; 
Shadow  in  the  tropic  sun, 
Castle  warm  in  winter's  cold, 
Harbor  where  our  hearts  shall  hold 
Cables  sure  a  little  ,space; 
Shrine  that  sanctifies  your  face 
And  the  child  that  looks  to  you. 
185 


'86  The  Home 

Dear,  if  anything  is  true, 
Dear,  if  anything  is  dear, 
We  shall  find  our  treasure  here. 
In  the  city's  shadowed  hells 
Something  sacred  somewhere  dwells. 
Dear,  if  anything  is  strong 
We  shall  save  them  who  belong 
To  our  Captain's  body-guard — 
Life  so  sweet  and  life  so  hard. 

S.  S.  Marama,  3'  31  '09. 


THE  UNFIT 

WE  lacked  the  purpose  long  avowed, 
The  master's  will,  the  hero's  soul. 
We  walked  and  slumbered  with  the  crowd. 
We  lagged  and  lost  the  distant  goal. 

Begotten  of  essential  brute, 
Betrayed  by  error,  want  and  vice, 
And  baffled  by  each  blind  pursuit, 
Your  burden  and  your  sacrifice : 

We  are  your  very  flesh  and  blood. 
To  us  your  children  spoiled  revert; 
Since  tides  must  ebb  that  have  their  flood. 
And  more  than  us  your  own  you  hurt; 

Who  blindly  waste  the  wine  of  life, 
Who  crush  its  bubbles,  scorn  its  scent; 
Who  busy  in  your  breathless  strife 
Would  mutilate  a  continent. 

Since  you  have  bound  and  crippled  us 
Blinded  and  bought,  yourselves  you  maim. 
We  judge  you  false  and  covetous 
Since  we  are  human,  and  the  same. 
187 


The  Unfit 

We  have  not  learned  to  earn  our  joy. 
We  dream  a  little  and  forget. 
Children  of  chaos,  girl  and  boy. 
We  are  not  fit  to  suffer  yet. 

So  have  you  thrust  us  toward  the  pit, 
Not  ours  the  fault  alone  we  know. 
We  are  unready  and  unfit, 
We  are  your  youth.     And  we  shall  grow. 

San  Francisco,  6'  4  '09. 


Y 


THE  SLUM 

OU  have  watered  the  primitive  out  of  your  lives. 
From   the  passive  embraces  of  children  and 
wives 

You  race  to  the  ticker.     You  've  narrowed  the  sea, 
Sawed  the  forests  to  matchwood;  and  cycles  to  be 
The  fruit  of  your  haste  shall  enjoy  at  their  ease, 
And  the  nature  you  hunt  from  the  mountains  and  trees 
That  you  hustle  and  stunt,  doubles  back  to  us  here. 
We  are  cave-men  primeval  with  faces  of  fear. 
And  wild  eyes  you  have  lured  from  Armenian  hills 
And  from  Sicily's  valleys,  and  hot  hate  that  kills 
That  we  nurse  in  our  hearts,  in  our  gray  granite  hive 
When  your  cold  blood  grows  thin  shall  yet  keep  you 

alive. 

Stop  and  look  at  our  life,  its  crowds,  color  and  smells, 
Its  law  of  the  jungle,  its  homes  that  are  hells. 
We  're  alive  there  though.     You  in  your  blank  brown- 
stone  blocks, 
And  their  bleakness  that  blinds  you  to  shadows  and 

shocks, 

And  to  high  lights  and  harmony;  culture  that  dwells 
In  apartment  hotels  that  are  life's  prison  cells, 
And  is  proud  not  to  know  its  next  door  neighbor's 

name, 
You  are  cliff-dwellers  too,  and  our  tribe  is  the  same. 

180 


'9°  The  Slum 

You   are   cowards.     Convention  fs   your  castle  and 

creed. 

And  you  live  in  its  limbo.  We;  sickness  and  need 
Have  taught  us  our  joys  and  our  sorrows  to  share 
With  our  money  and  matches.  You  hoard  yours.  Be 

fair, 

Try  to  focus  the  picture,  the  Master's  last  word, 
Big,  impressionistic.     Come  down  and  be  stirred 
By  our  poets,  our  prayers.     Come  to  grips  with  our 

graft, 

For  its  germs  breed  in  you,  and  we  're  all  in  one  craft. 
We  're  the  scum  of  creation?     Salvation  shall  come 
For  the  race,  for  the  nation,  for  all  from  the  slum. 

Paris,  ii*  1 6  '08. 


THE  IRON  CREED 

Wi:  are  heirs  of  evolution  and  children  of  to-day, 
And  from  our  own  environment  we  may  not 

break  away. 
We  may  not  sing  like  Homer  gray,  Olympus  crowned 

with  snow, 
And  gods  and  demigods  who  war  with  men  on  earth 

below. 

We  may  not  love  as  Dante  did  nor  paint  with  Raph 
ael's  hand, 
For  the  mountains  are  brought  low  to-day;  the  plains, 

the  sands  expand. 
We  may  not  cry  the  martyr's  creed  and  soar  on  wings 

of  flame. 

We  may  not  live  as  hermits  to  adore  one  awful  Name. 
We  may  not  love  one  woman  now  and  count  the  world 

well  lost, 
We  may  not  save  our  single  souls  at  all  creation's  cost. 

Life  has  demanded  more  of  us  for  it  has  given  more. 
Though  still  the  holy  mountains  call  the  soul  to  climb 

and  soar. 
We  may  not  live  transfigured  there,  we  may  not  love 

alone, 
We  must  come  down  and  strive  with  men  and  make 

their  cause  our  own. 

191 


19*  The  Iron  Creed 

No  more  than  bodies  starved  or  maimed,  may  minds, 

may  spirits  fast, 

Efficiency  becomes  the  creed  of  all  the  world  at  last. 
Salvation's  price  is  greater  now  since  life  is  more  than 

death, 
As  a  searchlight  in  the  storm  excels  an  altar  candle's 

breath. 
Our  God  to-day  has  many  names,  our  heaven  is  power 

applied. 
Our  hell  the  city's  shams  and  shames,  the  waste  of 

life  denied. 

We  have  lost  our  last  illusion,  childhood  of  the  race, 

The  golden  age  that  never  was,  the  golden  stairs  of 
grace, 

Sinless  heaven  freely  given,  harbor  safe  at  last, 

Life  means  wave  on  wave  of  storm  and  calm  to  strug 
gle  past. 

Sleep  of  death  like  earth  in  winter,  growth  that  never 
ends, 

Love  like  radium  whose  rays  make  all  the  world  its 
friends. 

Morning's  shadows  fade.  The  world  must  toil  through 
noonday's  blaze, 

Yet  one  living  parable  shall  gladden  iron  days. 

Golden  age  forever  safe  in  laughter  of  a  child. 

Heaven  smiled.  Hell  has  them  now  who  have  that 
smile  defiled. 

Paris,  12'  9  '08. 


THE  MESSAGE 

WHAT  does  it  all  mean?    Simply  this, 
Out  of  the  blackness  of  the  night 
Where  planets  swarm  and  suns  expire ; 
Sparks  from  the  one  eternal  light, 
And  voices  of  creation's  choir 
We  come  to  solve  our  share  of  bliss. 

We  come  to  sound  the  human  scale, 
To  strive  and  suffer,  seek  and  smile, 
From  sorrow's  lowest  depths  to  soar 
To  perfect  joy  a  little  while; 
Before  our  singing  sounds  no  more 
To  hear  one  echo  ere  we  fail. 

We  come  to  kindle  light  divine 
In  eyes  unborn  and  blind  and  dim, 
Till  risen  spirits  wake  and  see 
Some  vision  strong  of  seraphim, 
That  war  on  earth  eternally 
And  human  life  with  heaven  align. 

We  come  to  live  and  love  and  learn ; 
The  vast  of  space  to  comprehend, 
The  atom's  essence  to  explore, 
The  mind's  dominion  to  extend; 
To  war  with  darkness  more  and  more 
While  heaven's  beacons  brighter  burn. 
15  193 


1 94  THe  Message 

We  come  to  live  and  learn  and  love; 
To  hush  and  raise  to  harmony 
The  discords  harsh  of  sin  and  pain, 
To  merge  the  past  and  time  to  be 
Within  one  vibrant  heart  and  brain; 
And  singing  clear,  to  soar  above. 


Paris,  uf  19  '08. 


ENVOY 
THE  IRON  MUSE 

DEAREST,  I  saw  the  city  of  the  dead, 
The  shadowed  streets  of  space;  each  starry 

light 

Where  the  great  souls  that  conquered  storm  and  night 
And  cold  that  stills  the  heart,  that  stumbled,  bled, 
And  rose  from  sin  and  shame,  eternally 
Stride  on  the  Master's  errands;  nor  regret 
The  loves  they  left  on  earth,  that  might  not  be; 
Though  in  their  dreams  they  see  us  dimly  yet. 
And  linking  earth  and  heaven  and  hell's  unstarred 

abysm,  I  saw 
The  iron  strands  of  one  supreme  unalterable  law. 

Midnight  His  smithy  is.     The  lightnings  are 
Sparks  from  His  forge.     His  anvil  earth.     At  dawn 
His  fire  flames  forth,  His  steel  is  shaped  and  drawn; 
And  men  His  patterns  learn  to  make  or  mar 
In  freedom's  likeness.     So  our  fathers  wrought 
His  image  in  the  name  of  Liberty ; 
And  thought  the  idol  that  their  blood  had  bought 
Forever  should  be  spotless,  strong  and  free. 

195 


iQ6  The   Iron   Mxise 

We   who   are  sad  and  stained;    who  stronger   still 

through  struggle  grow; 
Freedom  that  rests  not  from  her  war  forever,  learn  to 

know. 

Dearest,  there  may  be  planets  younger  yet; 
Americas  unborn  may  wait  us  there, 
New  worlds  to  win,  more  fertile  and  more  fair, 
Where  we  our  earthly  warfare  shall  forget; 
Where  pain  and  shame  may  seem  a  little  thing, 
Like  joy  and  triumph  done  with  long  ago; 
And  love  itself  a  song  too  old  to  sing, 
When  we  the  fulness  of  God's  heavens  shall  know. 
It  may  be  so  above;  below  to-day  our  dwelling-place 
Time-stained  and  strong,  grows  ever  dearer,  fairer, 
like  your  face. 


THIS  BOOK  is  BUE  ON  THE  LAgT  DA 
STAMPEDJELOW 


LD  2l-50m-l,'38 


muorwouu  ,  j.^ 
i/.e   iron  uuse. 


PCT-20 


ECl 


WAR  -a' 1942 


308683 


UNIVERSl"n'  OF  CALIFORNIA  LIBRARY 


